2012 GOP GOG RACE GOG GOP

Jon Huntsman, Jr.
“To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy,” Huntsman tweeted Thursday afternoon.

His path to the presidency is along the lines of McCain’s in 2000.  Win the Independent voting pool in New Hampshire — perhaps something along the lines of a people sick of the Tea Party and ready for “The Sane” — and then parlay that victory to a win in South Carolina and momentum from there on through the rest of the primaries — “Big Money”, I guess, consolidating behind him.  I doubt it.  Note McCain didn’t win, and he had a better and bigger opening in South Carolina than Huntsman did, and a bigger block at the starting gate in geo-cultural opposition at the starting gate.  Still — that figure, the one likely to win New Hampshire and on for the rest of the primaries — is in full pandering mode.

“I don’t know that you sign a membership,” he said. “What I consider myself is someone who is in sync with the Tea Party.” — Mitt Romney.

Maybe Huntsman is pandering to “Captain Beefheart” fans — I don’t know.  That may be like suggesting Romney was pandering to Scientologists when he listed some L Ron Hubbard book as one of his favorite reads.

Shifting through the muck of Bachmann versus Paul versus Perry.  Michele Bachmann: “Working from the Inside to bring the System Down.”  That’s how she explains her quasi-scandalous past job with the IRS.  It’s rhetoric which is being flowered out by a lot of politicians of this stripe — Alex Jones conjoled Rand Paul on that point — “Agent from Within”.  (And incidentally, Ron Paul — his son sucks, just in that way I thought he would when I cheekily and merrily labeled him — on this blog — a “neo-con”.)

Bachmann won the Straw Poll with the help of Arms Trader to Uganda for Jesus Peter Waldron.  Ron Paul can’t get no respect —  Look.  A new Ron Paul fan website, born out of the current controversy over nature of Paul’s coverage in the Ames Straw Poll.  Features a slashing against Bachmann.

Rick Perry:
Until I saw clips of him in the past two or three days, I hadn’t realized how much watching and seeing Perry is just like having George W. Bush back in our living rooms. Maybe this will be an ingredient for strong conservative support. I can’t imagine that any sophisticated Republican operative thinks it’s a plus in winning 270 electoral votes. When Republicans ran against the first post-Nixon Democratic president, in 1980, they didn’t try to find someone who looked and sounded like Tricky Dick.

Gary Johnson:  Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson originally thought Gov. Rick Perry was just impersonating another former Texas governor who became involved in presidential politics, Politico reports.
“Have you ever heard Rick Perry talk? I thought when I listened to him talk, I thought he was doing a parody of George Bush. And I was looking around to see if anyone else saw the humor in that. And it wasn’t. It was just the way that he talked,” Johnson told Politico.

The way to get out of that, I suppose, is by mouthing rhetoric from Ron Paul about Ben Bernanke and angering the whole of the Bush Administration.  After that — yep, quite Bush like in fund-raising terms.

Rick Santorum had a media- arbitrarily defined “good showing” at the arbitrarily hyped Ames poll, and went on to showcase with an ad presented in bold action font— not quite on par with Pawlenty’s bold action ads.

Though, Santorum needs to watch it.

A Dutch company on Tuesday launched a lawsuit against the company that designed the campaign website for Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, accusing the site’s designer of illegally using its trademarked font.
Typotheque VOF is seeking at least $2 million in damages from RaiseDigital LLC, a Virginia-based consulting company that develops new media strategies for political campaigns and politicians.
According to the lawsuit, Santorum’s political action committee, America’s Foundation PAC, commissioned RaiseDigital to build ricksantorum.com, which serves as Santorum’s official 2012 presidential campaign website.
But as early as June 30, the site began prominently featuring an “unauthorized derivative version” of a type of font called FEDRA, according to the complaint. Typotheque said it owns the trademark to the FEDRA font, but that it has not seen a dime from RaiseDigital in licensing fees.

Thaddeus McCotter gets called a Man of “Big Ideas” —  also agree with Gabler that we have lost appreciation of big thinkers (look at our political classes… outside of Paul Ryan and Thaddeus McCotter I can’t think of a single big thinker on the national stage.

Also, he’s getting media attention where he can get it — that patch website really does suck.    Still — local color — he’s assembling crowds in the “Shade”.

Good news for Bachmann, and perhaps a sign of the cratering Roy Moore campaign.  A former Roy Moore supporter has jumped ship to the more “electable” Bachmann.  (Maybe I should start treating Moore like one of the third party candidates– alongside the Prohibition Party’s nominated candidate.

Buddy Roemer has the desire to “debate somewhere, sometime“.  Yeah, good luck with that… Mr. “Everyone is running around with secretive super-pacs“.

It’s really weird to see the positive framing for things like this:

Successful businessman and black conservative candidate for the presidency, Herman Cain says that it would be a great idea to impeach President Barack Hussein Obama.
Really, just because... Why not?
Theoretically you should present a reason for such a thing, but Cain doesn’t even feel the need to bother.
Also a comment like this ends up getting a fair share of positive affirmations.
“If ObamaCare had been fully implemented when I caught cancer, I’d be dead,” Cain said.

Hm.  No.  Not even under the logic of the argument — “Successful Businessman” Millionaire.

Cain is a former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, and has worked as an executive for Pillsbury and Burger King. He said the way to fix the economy is by releasing the chief engine of growth: private business. Cain said there’s an uncertainty in the business world right now, and investors are holding on to their money, rather than investing in new projects.
“All we need to do is get government out of the way,” Cain said. “Get government off people’s backs, and the jobs will be there.”

Good times!

Why can’t Cain, Roemer, McCotter, and the politicians like them do what Newt Gingrich is up to — dart your campaign with stuff like appearances in Hawaii?  Surely how Gingrich will win — win the primaries and caucuses of America’s tourist destinations.

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