UPDATE (4:07 PM): Duncan Hunter was supposed to be making a big announcement this afternoon, which is what I was referring to in this post. I assumed that his major announcement was that he was going to drop out. As my lovely copy editor pointed out to me, I was completely wrong in my assumption. Big whoopsies.
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Now we can truly begin seeing the narrowing of the Republican field. I wonder who Duncan “One delegate from Wyoming” Hunter will choose to endorse and ultimately throw his delegate to?
Archive for the 'Radical Right' Category
It is times like these when you wonder why the man still has a TV show, and why couldn’t the Secret Service have shot first, asked questions second?*
*As to the second part of that statement I am, in fact, only kidding. Kind of.
From Todd Dorman this morning on his blog in his discussion of “losers” from last night’s caucuses:
“Republicans — Could this party be any more screwed up right now? Huckabee was a great caucus candidate, but he could be a general election disaster, especially if Obama wins. Romney and Giuliani are fading fast. (Did you notice Ron Paul had three times as much Iowa support as Rudy?) Thompson is sleepwalking. The GOP’s best hope may be McCain. He’s a likeable, solid candidate who could have general election appeal, especially among independents. His strength, experience, could be contrasted with Obama’s weakness.”
I still don’t think that McCain is the kind of savior the GOP needs, but Dorman’s right about the Republican party. They’ve got some major issues to face. They’ve been able to hold on to this coalition of social conservatives and fiscal conservatives–with views that oftentimes conflict or pull the party in opposite directions–in presidential races for a long time. In fact, one of my political science professors at Drake and KCCI political analyst Dennis Goldford calls this group the “Republican presidential coalition.” And as Jeff Greenfield mentioned on CBS last night, the party is doomed if either Huckabee or Giuliani end up with the nod simply because of how divisive they can be for the party.
Republicans have a lot to be proud of in last night’s turnout, but they didn’t have nearly enough to compete with Democrats. As Markos pointed out here, last night’s total turnout was around 356,000. If you consider the entire voting universe for both Democrats and Republicans, Mike Huckabee (last night’s Republican winner) still came in fourth behind Obama, Edwards, and Clinton.
Just out of curiosity to the folks at the Des Moines Register: Alan Keyes was a participant in today’s Republican debate–why?!
Here’s a link to the Register’s standards for the privilege to participate in their debates, explaining why Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel won’t be participating.
But why did Alan Keyes, Tom Tancredo, and Duncan Hunter get to participate on the Republican side? Did all three have offices/staff in Iowa by October 1st? Alan Keyes didn’t even register in the October Iowa Poll.
I’m all in favor of keeping the non-serious contenders like Kucinich and Gravel out of the debates on the Democratic side. But shouldn’t the same standard apply for Republicans too, at least in the press?
For now, I’ll just let the Republican crazies keep making fools out of their party. I guess you’d just expect more from the Register.
Maybe I’m just over-generalizing in my mind, but does it really surprise anyone that Rev. Mike Huckabee said that homosexuality is “sinful” and “abberrant”?
He’s a Baptist minister and is strongly courting the social conservative wing of the Republican party–which can likely account for his ascension to the top in Iowa as of late. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t homosexuality generally considered a sin by most social or Christian conservatives? To me, I don’t see the supposed damage to his campaign from those statements. It is what they want to hear.
Now, this shit about quarantining folks with AIDS…that’s likely to hurt an image of a compassionate Christian hell-bent on helping people.
While all of this information was released this morning by the Associated Press, I’d still call it an opposition research dump. My guess is that someone in another campaign(s?) had some knowledge of these answers and the AP had to put the story out in an effort to quell rumors that could be even worse than the facts in this case.
Welcome to the front-runner position, Huckabee. Now comes the serious vetting.
As I’m sure you’re all aware, Mitt Romney did what was expected and won the Ames Straw Poll. Mike Huckabee’s second place showing was a bit more surprising to people and has got some Democrats seriously thinking about Huckabee’s chances and what kind of candidate he would be in the general. Go check out DesMoinesDem’s great post on Huckabee over at Bleeding Heartland and leave your thoughts on Iowa’s leading community blog.
I’m not in Ames today at the Iowa GOP Straw Poll fundraiser, but if you’re looking for coverage there are some amazing Iowans providing live-blogging and other coverage:
- Don McDowell of Cyclone Conservatives is the “official live-blogger” by the RPI.
- Iowa Indepedent in providing some amazing coverage via Chase Martyn, Doulgas Burns, and Garance Franke-Ruta.
- Kay Henderson of Radio Iowa covers the event here.
- IowaPolitics.com’s Straw Poll blog has coverage here.
- Dave Price of WHO-TV’s coverage here.
- The Des Moines Register’s Iowa Caucuses Backstage blog has coverage.
Anyway, I’m just going to pretty much say these Republican candidates are crazy after reading the things they’ve said today and the things they’ve done. I mean, both parties pander like crazy but I’ve never seen anything like this on the Democratic side in terms of pomp and circumstance for a measly little fundraiser, plus all the crazy things they’ve said.
And, finally, Ted Sporer is never happier than when he gets to brag about making sure he stifles the voices of people who disagree with him — or when he gets them arrested.
Mitt Romney’s five sons are patriotic Americans who support our nation by working to get him elected, instead of serving in the armed forces. From the AP (and confirmed by folks on the ground):
“Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Wednesday defended his five sons’ decision not to enlist in the military, saying they’re showing their support for the country by “helping me get elected.”
Romney, who did not serve in Vietnam due to his Mormon missionary work and a high draft lottery number, was asked the question by an anti-war activist after a speech in which he called for “a surge of support” for U.S. forces in Iraq.
[…]”The good news is that we have a volunteer Army and that’s the way we’re going to keep it,” Romney told some 200 people gathered in an abbey near the Mississippi River that had been converted into a hotel. “My sons are all adults and they’ve made decisions about their careers and they’ve chosen not to serve in the military and active duty and I respect their decision in that regard.”
He added: “One of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected because they think I’d be a great president.”"
My brother is Marine Corps reservist who recently received his orders to report for active duty in September (to a base in California) with a likely date of December for deployment to Iraq. He helped his nation by joining the Marines and offering his life for his country. While I have yet to figure out the “noble cause” he is likely to be fighting for in Iraq, I know he loves this country and when asked to serve he will without hesitation.
But he shouldn’t be fighting in Iraq just to save a president’s failed war and failed policy. I’m sure he’d agree that helping a man run for president, while a noble endeavor, doesn’t take the same kind of courage and risks as being a member of the armed forces of this country.
Or, maybe in the case of Mitt “Flip-Flop” Romney, it does take courage to say one thing the next day and say the opposite the next.
Just yesterday my colleague and friend Ben Weyl posted a story over at Iowa Independent about Mitt Romney’s lack of action to prevent porn being shown in Marriott Hotel’s while he was on the company’s board, and his current campaign stump rhetoric of attacking pornography in today’s society. The story has picked up some steam lately as its gotten coverage over at the Christian Broadcasting Network as well as by the Associated Press. As Ben noted, leading Iowa Christian leaders said that if the allegations and controversy were true it could be damaging to his Iowa campaign. He’s built a substantial lead here in the first state.
Earlier today, the campaign unveiled a new ad that derides the ocean of perversity, filth, and sludge in today’s society. Marc Ambinder has the video here (sorry, I won’t post Republican TV ads unless they’re horrible or funny or worth truly castigating).
I guess it just seems timely that as social conservatives are finding another reason to be wary of Romney, he puts up a new ad targeting their little pro-family hearts.
As John Deeth documents, Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas has a lot of ideas that can be considered quite radically conservative. And he’s got a thing with creating accounts for everything. In Iowa City he proposed “Marriage Development Accounts” to help give matching funds to couples who marry and start reproducing quickly. As IowaPolitics.com notes, he also wants to privatize Social Security — the most popular federal government of all-time and lasting over 70 years — by introducing so-called “personal accounts” which is just Republican code for elimination of the system through privatization. And, he also supports the creation of “Health Savings Accounts,” another way to ‘reform’ health care by supposedly introducing markets, but does nothing to solve the problems of insurance pool sizes and other issues with health care.
So, here’s his talking point for the election: I’ll give you accounts as President; they fix everything!
The US Attorney controversy surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the Department of Justice, and the Bush Administration will undoubtedly get more interesting as time goes on. Sen. Charles Grassley can’t be the only Republican out there who is becoming frustrated by this president’s executive power grab and the more that’s revealed, the more we know that the White House and AG Gonzales worked together in their efforts to force out 8 US Attorneys. Liberal Oasis has a good primer on the controversy here. But what is the Iowa impact?
Well, beyond Sen. Grassley’s vote to authorize subpoenas in the Congressional investigation, it is worth considering US Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa Matt Whitaker and how he plays into or is involved in the whole issue. While it is unquestionable that Whitaker and his staff in Iowa have done some exemplary work (see the CIETC Scandal for an example), one has to wonder how his partisanship plays in his day job. This has become particularly true in recent weeks because of the indictment of State Senator Matt McCoy on charges of extortion. David Yepsen has taken a look at the matter in his usual way and Chase Martyn of Iowa Progress skims the surface of the issue of Whitaker’s investigation and work here. I plan on taking it a bit further.
Just who is Matt Whitaker? He’s a graduate of the University of Iowa and former football player there. He has his JD and MBA as well. In 2002, he ran against incumbent Democrat Michael Fitzgerald for the position of State Treasurer as the Republican candidate. He lost, garnering 43% of the vote while Fitzgerald had 55%. Contribution information and disclosure forms from the 2002 Elections aren’t available on the IECDB website, but can be requested via email. I’m sure if I were to request a copy of the files, I’d see a bevy of social conservative donors. In early February 2004, Bush nominated Whitaker to the position of US Attorney and he won Senate confirmation in June of 2004.
How partisan is Whitaker? Well, he’s quite the Republican. He’s a social conservative and supportive of the Iowa Christian Alliance (formerly the Iowa Christian Coalition but has since broken off because of the Christian Coalition’s work with Move On — for net neutrality stuff — and other issues). He was to be the emcee at their spring 2007 kickoff event, as noted here on their website, but at the last minute the DOJ told him he couldn’t go as the emcee but had to simply attend. The Associated Press published a story in the Register [available via NewsBank] on his involvement in the event on February 28, noting that the group Americans United for the Separation of Church and State had objected to his role in the event. Traditionally, US Attorneys, while political appointees, have remained largely nonpartisan in their activities outside of the workplace as to avoid the appearance of impropriety or an imposed partisanship on the job. Clearly, by choosing to attend the event Whitaker was upsetting that tradition, to some degree. Even Ted Sporer, Chair of the Polk County Republican Party, wrote on his blog that Whitaker was in attendance at the event, which drew only Republicans.
Why is Whitaker’s partisanship bad? Well, in this case, I’ll let David Yepsen explain:
“Third, Whitaker is a Republican. And not just any Republican, but a socially conservative one who ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 2002 and could well be a candidate for office again.
He recently was in the news when he was scheduled to emcee an event for the Iowa Christian Alliance, a successor group to the Iowa Christian Coalition.
After first granting him permission to host the event, Whitaker said the Justice Department revoked it after objections from liberal groups. Instead, he just attended the meeting.
Active involvement in ideological political action groups like that is rare for U.S. attorneys in Iowa — and even the Justice Department higher-ups seemed to think better of it. For good reason. McCoy is a Democrat. And not just any Democrat but an openly gay one.
So we now have the specter of a politically ambitious, evangelical Republican with ties to the religious right going after a gay Democrat.”
Yepsen recommends that Whitaker step aside and let career prosecutors handle the case because of the possible conflicts of interest, or even the appearance of a conflict. Finally, Yepsen offers some wise advice.
Just how partisan are US Attorneys becoming? Well, McClatchy Newspapers has an amazing story on just how political and partisan the attorneys have become in recent years, thanks to Bush Administration efforts. Here is just a tid-bit:
“Since 2005, McClatchy Newspapers has found, Bush has appointed at least three U.S. attorneys who had worked in the Justice Department’s civil rights division when it was rolling back longstanding voting-rights policies aimed at protecting predominantly poor, minority voters.
[…] Taken together, critics say, the replacement of the U.S. attorneys, the voter-fraud campaign and the changes in Justice Department voting rights policies suggest that the Bush administration may have been using its law enforcement powers for partisan political purposes.
The Bush administration’s emphasis on voter fraud is drawing scrutiny from the Democratic Congress, which has begun investigating the firings of eight U.S. attorneys - two of whom say that their ousters may have been prompted by the Bush administration’s dissatisfaction with their investigations of alleged Democratic voter fraud.
Bush has said he’s heard complaints from Republicans about some U.S. attorneys’ “lack of vigorous prosecution of election fraud cases,” and administration e-mails have shown that Rove and other White House officials were involved in the dismissals and in selecting a Rove aide to replace one of the U.S. attorneys. Nonetheless, Bush has refused to permit congressional investigators to question Rove and others under oath.
[…] A third former civil rights division employee, Matt Dummermuth, 33, was nominated to be U.S. attorney in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last December. Before his appointment, he was counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights. He was a special assistant to the civil rights chief from 2002 to 2004.
Details of his involvement in reviewing voter rights couldn’t be determined, and Dummermuth, a Harvard Law School graduate, didn’t return calls seeking comment.
Bush administration officials have said that no single reason led to the firings of the eight U.S. attorneys. But two of those who were forced to resign said they thought they might have been punished for failing to prosecute Democrats prior to the 2006 congressional elections or for not vigorously pursuing Republican allegations of voter irregularities in Washington state and New Mexico.
Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias of New Mexico has said he thought that “the voter fraud issue was the foundation” for his firing and that complaints about his failure to pursue corruption matters involving Democrats were “the icing on the cake.”"
Clearly, partisanship and ulterior motives have begun to become the emphasis in the selection of US Attorneys and efforts to find some kind of documented voter fraud by the federal government has become the news means for Republicans to find a way to disenfranchise American voters. Read the full story from McClatchy for the full grasp of the situation.
Clearly, Whitaker’s partisanship could become an issue in this case and will likely lead to more criticism from those observing the process. Now, don’t get me wrong, I want to investigate this matter thoroughly. I just don’t want it to be a partisan effort to bring down Democrats. And Whitaker’s role in these cases — because of his active Republican party involvement — complicates the matter so much. The Polk County Democratic Party passed a resolution on Wednesday stating their support for Sen. Matt McCoy as well as noting the partisanship of the Justice Department. You can find the full release and resolution below the fold.
And one more thing to keep in mind: If allegations of voter fraud and other electoral issues are becoming the focal point of selecting US Attorneys, as it seems to be the case even with the Northern District of Iowa’s Matt Dummermuth, then Iowans should be on the lookout for investigations in other parts of Iowa, particularly with Election Day registration passing in the House and likely becoming law, should it pass the Senate. Maybe this Matt is just as partisan as the Matt from the Southern District.
Continue reading ‘Matt Whitaker: Just another partisan US Attorney?’
This morning, on a vote of 218-212, the US House passed the Iraq Accountability Act, which sits a pullout date for troops in Iraq by August of 2008 at the latest. It also approves more funding for the war, which has been a major point of contention among those members of the Progressive and Out-of-Iraq Caucuses in the House. In the end, House Democrats achieved a major victory by hitting 218 votes, the exact number needed for the bill to pass. Two Republicans voted for the bill while the rest voted against; 14 Democrats opposed the legislation as well (most being members of the two above caucuses) and one voted present.
Iowa’s three Democratic Representatives voted for the bill, while Reps. Steve King and Tom Latham declared, essentially, that they were troop killers.
Currently, President Bush is preparing to make a statement about the bill, where he’ll likely indicate his opposition to it again and signify that if the bill were to pass the Senate as well that he would veto the bill — declaring himself as Commander in Chief Troop Killer. The bill has been extremely divisive both in the real world and how Democrats online are responding to the bill.
The key takeaway point from this whole debate: Democrats have taken a small first step in a political minefield. The Progressive and Out-of-Iraq Caucuses have made significant gains and gotten significant strength in the process. Now, with these kind of bargaining chips, they’ve got to keep pushing harder and even more fiercely. This is the first step of many, let’s keep working.
UPDATE: Read David Sirota’s memo to members of the House Progressive Caucus on why, in the end, they should support the Iraq Accountability Act.
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Yesterday, Republican Tom Latham and all of the other Republican members of the House Appropriations Committee voted AGAINST a portion of the Democratic Iraq supplemental funding bill. The portion they voted against? Making sure our troops were fully armored, protected, trained, and rested before they were sent back to Iraq to serve. KagroX over at Daily Kos has the full story here with the full list of Republican “troop killers.” Speaker Pelosi’s blog has more on the provision here, with video of Rep. Jack Murtha defending the provision.
Today, local blogs across the country are taking action against the Republican troop killers and Political Forecast is going to be one of those blogs. Already Political Fallout, John Deeth, Blog for Iowa, and the Woodbury Democrat have attacked Latham for his vote and for his actions against the troops he supposedly supports. More Iowa blogs are expected to come out against Latham’s actions even later today.
Now, I understand that some Democrats are having a tough time swallowing the Iraq Supplemental Spending Bill that the House Democrats are pushing. I agree with Gov. Tom Vilsack and others that the only way to end this war is to truly stand up and cut off funding. But their are political realities we must face: The only way to end this war is to have Democrats step up and take action. As Chris Bowers points out here, the progressive caucus and the Out of Iraq Caucus have already essentially experienced defeat as the House Democrats have brought about this supplemental funding bill. However, if this bill gets voted down, we lose the provisions that require our troops to be out of Iraq by August 2008 at the latest and we end up losing the provisions that protect our troops from going back over to Iraq unprepared and unprotected.
We’re making strides in Congress, even if we lose battles like this. However, we have to make sure to keep pressing forward and the Iraq Supplemental is the only way to keep the pressure on the President and Washington Republicans.
Tom Latham voted to kill American troops by sending those returning to Iraq, whether via the surge or not, by sending the unprepared. House Democrats may not be able to stop the surge right now, but they can slow it down or at least send our troops back more prepared and ready than they currently are by passing this bill. It is a responsible step forward on a path that has no easy steps.
Selden Spencer, Latham’s likely Democratic opponent again in 2008, is already working hard in his race to beat Latham and reclaim the IA-04 for the men and women of Iowa who actually support our troops and don’t want to see them die. He’s been to Afghanistan as a medical professional and saw firsthand the type of injuries that war causes, particularly ones with strong insurgencies.
As KagroX wrote yesterday:
“The more who die, of course, the stronger becomes the Republican mantra that their deaths must not be in vain. For Republicans, more dead troops = more emotional heartstrings they can pull to continue their shell game. And the more heartstrings pulled, the more troops they’re free to kill. It’s the only part of the Iraq war that actually does pay for itself. Small wonder, then, that we’re entering the fifth year of this war, sending yet more troops into battle, and still sending them without what they need to survive the fight. In any other setting and with any other players, the plan would be considered lunacy. But for Republicans, the blood of the troops has become the oil in their political machine.
There is no other plausible excuse for it.”
Republicans are politically manipulating this war and letting young Americans die for electoral strategy. That is intolerable, inhumane, and essentially subhuman. It is a vile act and one that Democrats vehemently oppose.
A vote is likely to come on the Iraq Supplemental sometime tomorrow. Please encourage your representative in Congress to support the bill. Already, Iowa’s three Democrats have said they will support the supplemental funding bill, even if it is less than what they wanted.
Please make sure to also check out Matt Stoler’s post at MyDD here and KagroX’s two posts from today (here and here) on all of the other local blogs that have coordinated to call out the Republican troop killers from the House Appropriations Committee.
Tomorrow, the House vote can make a difference in this war. And come 2008, when we elect Selden Spencer and throw out Tom Latham, we’ll be able to make an even bigger difference.
I know that my post title is quite obvious, but let’s just say that John McCain is really becoming known as the presidential panderer extraordinaire. TM Lindsey has blogged about his comments last weekend in Iowa and their ridiculousness, and The New Republic has documented his pander to conservative writers and pundits here.
And, of course, McCain continues to switch paths on ethanol as the Iowa Democratic Party documented in a release they sent out last week. You can find the full release below the fold, but clearly it seems that McCain’s “maverick” and “straight talk” past hasn’t gotten him anywhere. He’s confined to the realm of political double talk now, but that’s the case with anyone trying to navigate the divisive constituencies of the modern Republican Party.
Even Duffy at the Register has documented McCain’s pandering — and he hasn’t exactly been great with his editorial cartoons lately.
I know that political pandering is usually the name of the game, particularly during such a divisive political season, but what is up with John McCain? Even Krusty has noticed it. Is there anyone on the Democratic side who is pandering this much or this obviously?
Continue reading ‘2008: McCain panders a lot’
This isn’t a blunder or a blooper or anything like that. They’re fucking bloggers, for God’s sakes, helping in internet strategy and online outreach. They’re not constituency organizers targeting certain groups of people but working in the online shop and managing the netroots message and strategy. Don’t get me wrong, I value the internet shop of any campaign moreso than many other parts of the campaign because I think they’re so critical, but who — beyond the traditional media who have helped breed this so-called controversy — honestly cares?
In general, I’ll second Mark Leon Goldberg’s comments from over at TAPPED. If Edwards does end up firing Amanda and Melissa (who I don’t know, but respect immensely), he’s bending over backwards for a right-wing hack group.
