Tag Archives: President Obama

The Colorado shootings: There were danger signs

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Colorado shooter’s stockpiling an arsenal was a danger sign

As word got out about the high-tech arsenal and combat gear amassed by Aurora, Colo., shooter James Holmes, some elements on the right immediately seized on the factual news as basis for supposititious theories. Predictably the theories are being circulated by email.

 

‘NaturalNews’ guy

The main narrative runs as follows:

Holmes’ equipment is too good for ordinary people to acquire, and therefore he must have had help/been coached by someone behind the scenes.

“In other words, this guy was equipped with exotic gear by someone with connections to military equipment.
SWAT clothing, explosives, complex booby-traps… c’mon, this isn’t a “lone gunman.” This is somebody who was selected for a mission, given equipment to carry it out, then somehow brainwashed into getting it done.”

The shooter’s actions seem out of character for Holmes.

“The New York Times is now reporting:
Billy Kromka, a pre-med student at the University of Colorado, Boulder, worked with Mr. Holmes for three months last summer as a research assistant in a lab of at the Anschutz Medical Campus. Mr. Kromka said he was surprised to learn Mr. Holmes was the shooting suspect. “It was just shocking, because there was no way I thought he could have the capacity to do commit an atrocity like this,” he said. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/us/colorado-mall-shooting.html?page…)

“He spent much of his time immersed in the computer, often participating in role-playing online games…”

There is already conjecture that James Holmes may have been involved in mind-altering neuroscience research and ended up becoming involved at a depth he never anticipated. His actions clearly show a strange detachment from reality, indicating he was not in his right mind. That can only typically be accomplished through drugs, hypnosis or trauma (and sometimes all three).”

His behavior is inconsistent–“his behavior doesn’t add up”:

“His behavior already reveals stark inconsistencies that question the mainstream explanation of events. For example, he opened fire on innocent people but then calmly surrendered to police without resistance. This is not consistent with the idea of “killing everyone.”

Furthermore, he then admitted to police that his apartment was booby-trapped with explosives. If you were really an evil-minded Joker trying to kill people (including cops), why would you warn them about the booby trap in advance? It doesn’t add up.”

What does it all add up to? –An operation, a “deliberate plot” by government, its purpose to make guns look bad or, as they put it, go after the Second Amendment:

“More and more, this shooting is looking like a *deliberate plot* staged by the government itself much like /Operation Fast and Furious/ pulled off by the ATF
(http://www.naturalnews.com/032934_ATF_illegal_firearms.html) which helped smuggle tens of thousands of guns into Mexico for the purpose of causing “gun violence” in the USA, then blaming the Second Amendment for it.”

The kicker? — Another purpose for this black op was to distract attention away from Rep. Michele Bachmann’s nut-stuff, McCarthyite accusations about a ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ in government. This one also has been transmitted by email:

” Please change: “has been successfully distracted”

To:  “has in effect been distracted from the Michele Bachmann, et al./Muslim Brotherhood issue, ” (plus additional edit):”

 

The foregoing is not the only misapplied rightwing conjecture about the Colorado shooter. Another web site, with singular nastiness, posits that he may be Jewish (spelled coyly). An early attempt via Facebook that ferreted out the wrong guy was widely reported–as was ABC News’ linking him briefly to the Tea Party.

These last two errors, however, are to some extent atypical. One thing the goofiest arguments tend to have in common is insisting falsely that the shooter was part of a group (wittingly or un-). As I wrote in my previous post on this sad topic, that is the key distortion. Incident after mass shooting incident involves a disturbed, loner-type guy–Littleton, Colo., Virginia Tech, Aurora, Colo.; the shootings at schools in Scotland and in China; the massacre of young people at a youth camp in Norway. Yet always the rightwing noise machine, the gun stockpilers, the NRA and the weapons-and-gear industry who market to them, and the political figures who pander to them continue to focus on and characterize, not him, but Them.

This is a classic example of what Freud called projection and denial.

Sometimes ordinary language hardly seems enough. We need a people’s mic here.

This shooting wasn’t an army against one individual.

THIS SHOOTING WASN’T AN ARMY AGAINST ONE INDIVIDUAL!

 

It was the other way around.

IT WAS THE OTHER WAY AROUND!

 

It wasn’t a whole troop against one innocent guy.

IT WASN’T A WHOLE TROOP AGAINST ONE INNOCENT GUY!

 

You.

YOU!

It was one guy, armed to the teeth, shooting randomly at a crowd of innocent people,

IT WAS ONE GUY, ARMED TO THE TEETH, SHOOTING RANDOMLY AT A CROWD OF INNOCENT PEOPLE!

Still might not work, of course–nothing seems to penetrate with these people. Also, they tend to have an entrepreneurial angle that could influence independent judgment, assuming independent judgment is still a desideratum. The ‘naturalnews’ web site quoted above, if you notice, is a big pusher of survivalist equipment–stock up now–including dietary/nutritional supplements. This is the dietary/etc equivalent of Glenn Beck’s pushing gold, urging listeners (if any) to hoard it up before the coming economic conflagration, yet unnamed. These are the spokespersons, if you notice, who tend not to be fans of government agencies like the FDA, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC. Again there might be a touch of the entrepreneurial in their outlook.

This entrepreneurial dimension is one thing the wing-nut sites have in common with corporate media outlets. They also have one story element in common with the largest media outlets, the insistence on Holmes as a ‘mystery man’ with ‘no background’. As posted previously, this one became an instant myth, conveyed here and here for example.

The right-wingers hype the supposed mystery angle to different effect than the larger outlets, of course. For the former, Holmes’ supposed lack of footprint makes him a shadow figure, a private-life version of the Manchurian candidate some of them–including some wealthy GOP donors–perceive President Obama to be. In this view, he is a deteriorated version of the Cary Grant character in Hitchcock’s brilliant North by Northwest, someone who can be grabbed and used by government agencies, sucked into some larger plot.

 

Cary Grant, heading for cornfield

‘Mainstream’ outlets touted Holmes’ supposed lack of footprint to more subtle and insidious effect.  The message embedded in that no-social-media-footprint meme? Simple:

  • We Can’t Tell what kind of person will just go off the rails next
  • So We Can’t Tell who will go out and shoot up a bunch of people
  • So There Is Nothing We Can Do About It
  • Therefore, There’s No Use trying for gun control.

This is not exaggeration, or not by much. This is nearly verbatim the line of thought voiced by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on a Sunday morning talk show after the Colorado shootings. It is also a line suspiciously easy for media outlets, under fear of pressure from NRA-influenced advertisers, to fall into.

Holmes will almost undoubtedly turn out to have had more cyber presence than has yet been fully reported. Before recently, he often went by the nickname Jimmy, and social media sites turn up countless Jimmy Holmeses; he did much of his combat-gear purchasing online, something that generally leaves a trail; and he played complex and obscure games online, like many of his peers. As written previously, one of Holmes’ new usernames turns up on Twitter–with the line, “When life gives you lemons, shoot people.”

 

News reports have already indicated some of the purchase trail. From the transcript:

“BOB ORR (CBS News Justice Correspondent): Bob, first of all, the Chief was modest. I don’t think he really gave us all the details of what the great work that’s been done on the ground has produced. The police there along with the federal partners have amassed a substantial case of evidence already. That this was a premeditated act of murder and the planning goes back about four months. They’ve recovered things like shipping labels from a dumpster in front of Holmes’s apartment. They’ve got credit card records. They know he shopped at internet sites like BulkAmmo.com, TacticalGear.com. They have a surveillance tape of Holmes allegedly picking up a hundred and sixty pounds of ammunition at a FedEx counter in Colorado. And they also have talked to a UPS driver that says, “Oh, I remember this guy. He had ninety packages delivered to him in his work address.”

More importantly, the unconscious obfuscation in this representation of Holmes as no-footprint is a sign of the deeper problem we have in discerning signs of mental illness or extreme distress even in people we know.

Mentally ill people are still people, and up to a point their behavior is that of other people. This is especially complicated in young people, who even in the best lives are often trying out new versions of themselves, deciding which version of themselves they want to be. The transition from Jimmy to ClassicJimbo could have been one of those harmless personality reinventions that young people engage in–like changing hair color or hairstyle, getting body piercings or tattoos, going on dating sites, choosing to go by first name rather than by middle name or vice versa, or by full name rather than nickname. (Some of the Obama-haters have made a big deal about that, re Obama; they tend not to mention that the young Mitt Romney–who started out Billy Romney–did the same.) Relocating to a different town, starting at a new school, changing relationships–all of these are stressful events; they also often accompany other experimentation, again often harmless.

But given what Holmes was engaged in, we don’t actually have to dig too deep to see the danger signs. The no-danger-signs meme is as false as the no-footprint meme. Holmes’ stockpiling deadly weapons and combat gear was itself a danger sign and should have raised a flag. ‘Jimmy Holmes’ may or may not turn up in social media. Maybe–can’t tell. His secretiveness or privativeness in playing online games may or may not turn out to exceed that of other adolescents; we can’t tell yet. But as with Cho at Virginia Tech and the pair of shooters at Columbine, one fact indubitably clear is that he was stockpiling implements of war, weapons and gear for the use of deadly force. A partial inventory of his deadly arsenal is provided by Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates; video here. Holmes also got online enough to display a mind running more and more on violence–shooting people. To the list of weapons and other gear and the explosive or incendiary devices in his apartment another item may be added. It sounds as if Holmes also purchased some kind of voice-distortion device for his answering machine, on which he left a recording that spooked a local gun-range owner.

It has now been reported that Holmes also sent a letter, before the shootings, to a professor at the University of Colorado. The letter did not receive its intended recipient, because campus mail did its usual thing.*

Extreme acts often generate extreme responses. Fortunately the shootings at a movie theater in Colorado have not brought a concomitant reaction of deadly force. But they did, initially at least, generate an extreme throwing up of hands in a collective media act of learned helplessness.

Hint, for those in the news media who–in between asking helplessly, What can we do?–are wondering What were the signs? Here are the signs: A young guy, educated, a good student, with his life ahead of him, started stocking up on assault guns, a high-powered rifle, body armor including throat protector and groin protector, tear gas/irritant containers, components for home-made explosives.

 

Et cetera.

ET CETERA!

 

* I am well aware that I have offended pro-gun lobbyists before. Some day, in a lighter moment, I hope to start on campus mail.

[Update]

Dr. Lynne Fenton, the assistant professor to whom James Holmes wrote and sent a package, was also director of student mental health services at the University of Colorado medical school. Holmes was also one of her psychiatric patients.

Affordable Care Act largely upheld by Supreme Court

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The Supreme Court ruling just out, upholds the health care law in most important provisions. The so-called individual mandate is upheld, deemed constitutional as a tax, Chief Justice Roberts joining the majority on the ‘left’ of the high court.

Also reported: the Medicaid provisions remain in.

From C-Span 3, images of a largely negative but subdued crowd rallying in front of the Supreme Court building. Easy to see the effect and swiftness of rumor; a man calls out that the mandate is struck down, and there’s cheering. The correction comes fast, and there’s booing. Further news and clarification, and within seconds a woman addresses the anti-‘Obamacare’ crowd, telling them that “doctors say” that whatever the Supreme Court rules today is irrelevant.

Chief Justice Roberts

More to come.

 

Trump, birtherism and the GOP race 2012: The more things don’t change, part 3

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The more things don’t change, part 3

2012 from primary to election

 

The dynamic that shaped the Republican primaries is now shaping the Republican campaign for the White House: Future nominee Mitt Romney is continuing the Rick Santorum strategy of going for the leftovers.

 

Romney supporters in Tennessee

As we know, the GOP primary season from summer 2011 to May 2012 shaped up as a contest dividing the voters from more populous counties, in general, from the voters of less populous counties. The GOP primary race was never between ‘moderate’ and ‘conservative’; all the candidates except in some ways Ron Paul support the same rapacious policies. The primary race was between Romney, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul on one hand and Santorum on the other, the fault line being metropolitan/suburban appeal versus rural appeal. Santorum took most of the less populated counties, and he took states where rural and small-town counties and congressional districts outweigh metropolitan areas and suburbs. In this metric, as previously written, Santorum had the advantage of a divided field among his opponents and the leftovers to himself. Romney, Gingrich and Paul divided the more populated areas.

 

Romney with Nikki Haley

Now Romney has the Republican electorate all to himself—an electorate dependent on voters in regions where population density is not high, where communications are not good, where newspapers are not strong, and where per capita wealth and computer literacy are most lopsidedly divided between highest and lowest. Meth lab country. ‘Safe states’? The only respectably safe state for Romney is Utah. Romney is inordinately dependent on states that gave Rick Santorum victories—Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee—or that would have boosted Santorum if he could have lasted longer or if he had gotten his electors/delegates on the ballot—Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Texas, West Virginia.

Of the states just mentioned, Texas comes closest to being Romney territory. (Texas also comes closest of these to being Obama territory, but so far the Dems have successfully kept that secret.) As written last week, however, out-of-the-race candidates Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and others pulled several thousand votes in the May 29 Texas primary won by Romney. So did “Uncommitted,” on the GOP ballot: More than sixty thousand voters turned out, in an uncontested Republican primary, to vote NOT for their party’s overwhelming favorite and frontrunner, rejecting even the cachet of putting the nominee over the top.

 

Trump

Enter Donald Trump, with his version of support for Romney.

Trump’s support is hardly intended for ‘swing states’. There is no evidence that Trump has wide popular appeal in Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin. Even in Missouri he looks iffy. Trump’s ‘birth certificate’ ploy is not part of a grand strategy to soften antagonism to Romney among people who work in the automobile industry in Michigan or even in Indiana. No, Trump’s support, his ghastly pitch for birtherism, is a straight-out invitation to the most ignorant counties in the U.S. Grabbing headlines big enough to reach people who don’t read and who distrust the ‘liberal media’ so intensely they refuse to read newspapers or to watch any television news except Fox, Trump is going openly for the voters in the 91 of 95 Tennessee counties won by Santorum.

 

The brighter side of factories closing

Regrettably, automobile workers in Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina are seldom allowed to know about Romney’s policy positions. If you want another trillion-dollar war and another trillion-dollar tax cut for speculators and hedge fund managers, Romney’s your man—video clips widely available. But the dearth of newspapers in places that need them most seals up policy discussion as though it were national secrets. The result is ongoing harm to U.S. manufacturing and to working families.

 

Back to the birthers—

Theoretically Romney came out of the Texas primary as undisputed top dog and all-round GOP winner, safely in a position to train effective opposition against the Democrats and the president for the next five months. No more press hype boosting minor opponents like Tim Pawlenty (see here and here and here). No more unappealing candidates like Bachmann, Gingrich and Santorum trying ham-handedly to swipe at Romney. Right? No more para-candidates like Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin and Trump to distract attention from the nominee. Uh. No more specter-candidates like Chris Christie and Jeb Bush as embarrassing reminders of how many GOPers hoped for more latecomers in the race—at least, not yet this week. No more speculation in the political press as to whether Romney will be downed by a much-hyped ‘Christian right’, Tea Party, and ‘rebellion’ in the ranks. Hm.

Theoretically Romney has massive advantages.

  • He was a primary candidate who did not flunk the one-look-from-across-a-crowded-room test.
  • He presumably has political infrastructure intact at the state level, remaining from a front-loaded primary schedule, copious early money and longstanding organization.
  • He will have unprecedented funding from everyone from Karl Rove to the Koch brothers and the Chamber of Commerce in between.
  • His campaign has five months to benefit from expensive and misleading television ads.
  • He can count on intransigence from Republicans in Congress, to prevent any legislation that would improve the condition of ordinary Americans.

And yet, and yet—he still faces, as previously written, the prospect of some voter sectors not finding a ‘top-tier’ candidate ugly enough for their tastes, and wishing they could have replaced him with someone more transparently unsavory. These are the Manchurian-candidate voters to whom Trump appeals.

If an obvious falsehood triumphs anywhere, it is most liable to triumph in wide-open stretches where mass communications are poor, where former farms produce hay and timber if they’re lucky, and where meth labs start looking like a good way to make a living. Even the most declined neighborhoods in the large industrial states do not tend to be hotbeds of birtherism. Susceptibility to Romney’s claim of being an effective manager is still found more in suburbs than in cities.

Perhaps by now we should all be used to wild claims, and used to the political press reporting wild claims as though they were substantive. Look at the way quintessential Washington insiders and career politicians typically claim to be outsiders, a new start, a fresh face—like Herman Cain, and Santorum with his lobbying career, and Gingrich with his contract with Freddie Mac. To some extent the discrepancies are aired by the national political press, though not as much as they should be and too often as though they are equally endemic to both sides in a national election.

Worse, such factual reporting as survives the filter of the national political press is jeopardized by continuous undertow from the business press. All the major GOP candidates, regardless of stylistic differences, are essentially corporate mouthpieces. Personality differences notwithstanding, the core fiscal trickle-down policy remains intact: it’s rich-get-richer. It’s always there.

They don’t put it that way, of course. The obfuscation is protected by the business press—the same commentators, analysts and journalists who failed to notice the impending mortgage-derivatives crisis and who almost unanimously supported ‘deregulation’. Still do.

It’s the same gang that keeps giving us Orwellianisms about ‘austerity’, ‘debt’, ‘energy’ and ‘jobs’ while doing everything it can to siphon off value from the many and convey it to the few, and a highly unqualified few at that.

Once again, a recent example—U.S. Treasury bills last week sold at a remarkably low rate of interest, yield, meaning that 1) U.S. Treasuries are regarded as rock-solid investment, and 2) their sale saddles the Treasury with little to no debt. But in all the hoopla about ‘the budget’, when was the last time you heard a GOPer in Congress mention the fiscal benefit of issuing U.S. Treasuries at a lower interest rate, to pay off bonds with a higher rate?

Once again, there is an analogy here to refinancing your mortgage. Most people understand the value of refinancing their mortgages if they can get a significantly lower interest rate. It would be illuminating to know which members of Congress have refinanced their houses, just to check on which members understand the same idea. Unfortunately, that information is not publicly available. Residences of congress members are exempted from financial disclosure.

Publicly, in any case, they all go the pro-corporate line of harping on ‘debt’ and ‘deficit’ anyway—except when it comes to discussing corporate debt.

 

More on Trump’s version of birtherism later

More Trump birtherism

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The more things don’t change, part 2 –Trump and birtherism

This week’s utterances from Donald Trump actually revisit his earlier statements about President Obama’s birth certificate, somewhat more indirectly. For those who have forgotten, CNN’s Anderson Cooper aired lengthy interviews with Trump, at Trump’s request uncut, April 25 and April 26, 2011. The interviews followed CNN’s own investigation of archives in the state of Hawaii during the CNN investigation of Obama’s birth certificate. Some of the transcript from the Apr. 25, 2011, program is posted at bottom. Owing to length, some of it will have to go up later.

Back to this week–we need a dramatic-comic reading. Trump, the man who has been working overtime to bring birtherism back on to the map, is using rhetorical tactics passed down to us from the Greeks and Romans, presumably the sleazier Greeks and Romans. Among them, a professed agnosticism on whether President Obama was born in the United States, a pretend dubiety that makes an accusation while pretending not to. Here is one of Trump’s thin disavowals:

[from transcript]

“(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA (voice-over): Mitt Romney is once again letting it ride by Donald Trump. Just hours before Romney attends a fund-raiser hosted by Trump on the Las Vegas Strip, the real estate tycoon is still voicing his doubts about whether President Obama was actually born in the U.S.

DONALD TRUMP, CHAIRMAN & CEO, TRUMP HOTELS & CASINO RESORTS:

I have never really changed. Nothing’s changed my mind. He doesn’t have a birth certificate. Now, he may have one . . .” [italics added]

 

Trump

For all the publicity over this week’s graceless comments, Trump was actually brasher back in spring 2011, when he was still thinking of running for president:

[from transcript]

“(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, CHAIRMAN & CEO, TRUMP HOTELS & CASINO RESORTS:

I have people that actually have been studying it, and they cannot believe what they’re finding.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have people now down there . . .

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Absolutely.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: . . . searching in Hawaii?

TRUMP: Absolutely. And they cannot believe what they’re finding.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You say that you have sent investigators there. Have your investigators been able to unearth anything more that has given your argument credence?

TRUMP: I will let you know that at a future date. I will let you know that at a future date.”

The future date never came. As we know, the president released his long-form birth certificate, Trump decided not to run for the White House, and we have yet to see those hired Trump investigators, either on television or in any other medium or forum. But Trump is back in the news, for only a slighter softer version of the same already-discredited remarks.

 

Bacon

Not that the history goes back only to April 2011. Here for the record is Francis Bacon on the Donald Trumps of the world, from the seventeenth-century essay “Of Boldness”:

“So these men, when they have promised great matters, and failed most shamefully, yet (if they have the perfection of boldness) they will but slight it over, and make a turn, and no more ado. Certainly to men of great judgment, bold persons are a sport to behold; nay, and to the vulgar also, boldness has somewhat of the ridiculous. For if absurdity be the subject of laughter, doubt you not but great boldness is seldom without some absurdity. Especially it is a sport to see, when a bold fellow is out of countenance; for that puts his face into a most shrunken, and wooden posture; as needs it must; for in bashfulness, the spirits do a little go and come; but with bold men, upon like occasion, they stand at a stay; like a stale at chess, where it is no mate, but yet the game cannot stir. But this last were fitter for a satire than for a serious observation.”

A good onstage reading of Trump from transcripts would interlace Trump’s statements with their models defined in Prof. Richard Lanham’s Handlist of Rhetorical Terms.

Here, pulling out more from the archaic stockpile, is Trump in the May 29 interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN:

[from transcript]

“WOLF BLITZER, CNN: Joining us now from Las Vegas on the phone is the chairman and the president of Trump Organization, Donald Trump. Donald, thanks very much for joining us.

DONALD TRUMP, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, TRUMP HOTELS & CASINO RESORTS: I thought your reporter was very inaccurate in his description. And I thought the introduction was totally inappropriate and was actually very dishonest.

BLITZER: Well, tell us why.

TRUMP: Well, because what he said was wrong and what he said was almost as though President Obama wrote it, but I’m sure he knows that. And I thought it was a very inappropriate introduction. But go ahead with your first question.

BLITZER: Well, I don’t–you–is there a specific issue you want to dispute that he mentioned, because, if you do, I want to give you a chance . . .

(CROSSTALK)”

Not to give away the ending here, but this Trump interview reads like any transcript through the ages, when an interlocutor tries to pin sleaze down and the pinnee tries to wriggle out from under.

Tactic A: Pre-emptive accusation against the interlocutor, above.

Tactic B: Pretext that the target is really the source. Continuing,

“TRUMP: Obama does not like the issue of where he was born. His own publisher, as you know, using his words, said he was born in Kenya and he lived in Indonesia. Of course, now he’s denying that, amazingly.”

Also above, Tactic C: Now, I know he doesn’t want me to say this . . . Insinuation that speaker is blowing open a story covered up by nefarious others.

Tactic D: I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. Speaker claims that he’s not really here to say what he’s saying:

“[Trump] So–but I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to talk, as you said you would, jobs, China, what’s going on with respect to China and how they’re ripping this country, what’s going on with respect to OPEC and how the nations of OPEC are laughing at the stupidity of our country. That’s what I’m here to talk about.

BLITZER: All right.

TRUMP: You know that’s what I’m here to talk about, and I thought your introduction was highly inappropriate. But that’s OK, because I have gotten to know you over the years.

BLITZER: Well, I–well, listen, Donald, first of all, I never said we weren’t going talk about the birther issue. We had a conversation earlier today. We didn’t discuss at all what we were going to talk about.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: It’s something that bothers Obama very much.

BLITZER: I don’t know why you’re . . .

TRUMP: And I will tell you, it’s not an issue that he likes talking about. So what he does is uses reverse psychology on people like you, so that you report like, oh, gee, he’s thrilled with it. He does not like that issue because it’s hitting very close to home. You know it and he knows it.”

Reiterates tactics already used. Blitzer seems bemused at the overt attack on him and on CNN reporter Jim Acosta.

Now we get to the meat of the accusation. Tactic E: Speaker puts accusation into others’ mouths:

“(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: I don’t know it. Donald, you and I have known each other for a long time. And I don’t understand why you’re doubling down on this birther issue after the state of Hawaii formally says this is the legitimate birth certificate. He was born in Hawaii. Why are you going through all of this, Donald?

TRUMP: Well, a lot of people don’t agree with that birth certificate. A lot of people do not think it’s authentic.”

Tactic F: Speaker attempts to discredit documentary evidence.

“BLITZER: But if the state of Hawaii authorizes it, if the state of Hawaii says, this is official, he was born in Hawaii on this date, here it is, why do you deny that?

TRUMP: A lot of people do not think it was an authentic certificate.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: How can you say that if the . . .

(CROSSTALK)”

Reiterates that the accusation actually comes from others.

“TRUMP: Now, you won’t report it, Wolf, but many people do not think it was authentic.

His mother was not in the hospital.” [italics added]

Tactic G: Fabrication.

“There are many other things that came out. And, frankly, if you would report it accurately, I think you would probably get better ratings than you’re getting, which are pretty small.”

Tactic H: Hint of yet undisclosed corroboration. Re-uses tactic of attacking interlocutor.

“BLITZER: Donald, have you seen the actual newspaper announcements within days of his birth in Honolulu, for example, “The Honolulu Star- Bulletin”? We will put it up there. You see the birth announcement back in 1961.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Listen to me, Donald.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Can I ask . . .

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Am I allowed to talk, if you could stop defending Obama?

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Donald, Donald, you’re beginning to sound a little ridiculous, I have to tell you.

TRUMP: No, I think you are, Wolf.

Let me tell you something. I think you sound ridiculous. And if you would ask me a question and let me answer it, instead of making . . .”

Tactic I: Speaker accuses others of not letting him speak/answer.

“BLITZER: Here’s the question. Did the conspiracy start in 1961, when “The Honolulu-Star Bulletin” and “The Honolulu Advertiser” contemporaneously published announcements that he was born in Hawaii?

TRUMP: That’s right. And many people put those announcements in because they wanted to get the benefit of being so-called so-called born in this country. Many people did it. It was something that was done by many people, even if they weren’t born in the country. You know it, and so do I. And so do a lot of your viewers.”

Reiterates tactic of putting his accusation into others’ mouths. Tactic J: Lumps the falsely accused in with actual misfeasors. [Note: The idea that the birth notice was placed falsely by parents was rebutted by Anderson Cooper on CNN, more than a year ago. See transcript below.]

“BLITZER: Donald, explain why–so why did the state of Hawaii authorize that live birth certificate? Why did they do it? Are they part of this conspiracy as well?

TRUMP: Well, your Democratic governor who was the one that was really leading it, a lot of people say, where did it come from? And they’re saying how come he didn’t show it to John McCain, Hillary Clinton? It was only Donald Trump that got him to do it.

So, you know that, and I know that. And when you say that Obama doesn’t mind this, Obama hates this subject. When his publisher comes out with a statement from him made in the 1990s that he was born in Kenya and that he was raised in Indonesia, and all of a sudden it comes out, I think it’s something that he doesn’t like at all.

Now, what he says is, oh, we love it, we love it, we love it, because that’s . . .

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Donald, let me tell you–let me tell you who hates this subject. It is Mitt Romney, who totally disagrees with you on this, including today. He issued a statement.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I don’t speak to Mitt Romney about it.”

As mentioned, Trump has actually been less indirect in the past, look at some of his earlier remarks. The transcripts below are from Apr. 25, 2011:

From Fox News Network:

“And you know he can say what he wants, but the fact is that this guy has not revealed his birth certificate. A lot of people agree with me. I tell you what, with all that I do, what I do best is China, jobs, OPEC, all of this. That’s what I do best.

That’s going to be my strength. It is my strength. I really understand it. I know the people. But with all of that, I think I get more positive–when I’m talking down the street, when I did–recently I did a Tea Party event, and we had a tremendous crowd. They loved this issue.

There are so many people that really want him to provide his birth certificate. I mean now you have states going out and saying, in order to run for office, you have to be able to provide a birth certificate.

There is a big lot of things going on with respect to the birth certificate. You know why did he spend–why is he spending millions of dollars to fight this issue instead of just providing his birth certificate? There are so many different elements here and I will say, it’s a very frightening thing for this country.”

From CNN, same day:

“ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight: the birther battle that keeps on building. Donald Trump is on the program tonight leveling surprising new claims about President Obama’s birth certificate, Trump now saying he believes it’s missing or doesn’t even exist.

As for proof? Well, as you will hear, he has none. Remember, Trump has said for weeks now that he has a team of investigators on the ground in Hawaii looking into the president’s birth certificate. But he’s offered no proof. We decided to send our own team to Hawaii to investigate as well. And over the next two nights you’re going to see what they found. They were there for five days interviewing and talking to dozens of people.

By the way, none of the people they talked to said that they’d been contacted by anyone working for Donald Trump. We spoke exclusively to the health official who at the orders of the Republican governor actually went and examined Mr. Obama’s original 1961 birth certificate. We spoke to the newspaper that ran his birth announcement and the people who knew his family and have known him since the day he was born almost 50 years ago in Honolulu.

Now, before we show you what we found, let’s just quickly go over some of the basics. This is President Obama’s certificate of live birth. This is the only document that Hawaii now considers to be official proof of birth in the state. This is the document the state gives you, any resident of Hawaii, anyone born in Hawaii, when you request proof of birth from the state.

It gets you a driver’s license in Hawaii, and the U.S. State Department accepts it as valid proof for citizenship when you’re applying for something like a passport. Now, this is the picture of the certificate of live birth that President Obama ordered from the state during the campaign. Take a look up close.

It’s got an official stamp with a stamped signature and a raised seal. It’s been examined by a number of news organizations and nonpartisan groups. You and I can’t get our own copy of this document even with the president’s permission. And by law, you or I could not go look at the president’s original 1961 birth certificate, which is in the Department of Health in Honolulu according to authorities there.

However, anyone could go to the Hawaii Vital Statistics Office and look at official birth information that’s called index data. It’s stored in a government binder. It’s an alphabetized list of all the babies born in Hawaii. And in the book containing births from 1961 to 1964 you will find a listing for Barack Hussein Obama. II, gender male. Here’s also the local paper’s birth announcement. It’s not an ad, by the way, placed by the parents or the grandparents.

These were official announcements just like sheriff sales and other public notices. The paper would get them straight from the Department of Health. That’s how it works. So you have got the official document the state sends out, recognized by the state and the federal government. You have got a birth announcement with officially provided information from back in the day. [emphasis added]

And you have got Republican state officials who said the original birth certificate is absolutely there. Now, this information as you all know has been out there for years, but still the confusion, in some cases conspiracy theories exist. So we decided to send our team to Hawaii to try to clear up the confusion. In a moment we will talk to Donald Trump.”

 

continued in later post

May 8 primary results hold interest for Democrats

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May 8th primary more interesting for Dems

The series-of-oddities parade of GOP presidential contests since summer 2011 seems to be over for now, and the May 8 primary results hold some potential for improvement in government at the federal and state level. Quick spot-check below.

Sen. Lugar

Indiana:

  • Most famously, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) will leave the Senate at the end of 2012, after thirty-five years in Washington. Represented as a statesman, Lugar did not question either the Iraq war or trillion-dollar tax breaks for the wealthy under GWBush. Some Pale-Blue-Dog media commentators are spinning this as a political loss for Democrats–oddly, since the GOP senate nominee in Indiana will be State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, who filed a losing lawsuit against the Obama administration’s bailout of the auto industry. Auto parts and supplies are a significant industry in Indiana. Mourdock, a former coal and oil geologist running as an outsider, tried for Congress unsuccessfully three times in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
  • Lugar’s loss to Mourdock has been represented in media almost entirely as a story of Tea-Party-wins-one. Dick Armey of FreedomWorks sent around the same line by mass email. A version of the same narrative has Lugar the statesman driven out by extreme partisanship, faulted for his votes to confirm the president’s Supreme Court nominees, for example. Lugar’s own statement takes this line. No one points out that Lugar’s Senate votes since 2006 may have made sense as political calculation also, given that Obama won Indiana in 2008. Indeed, given not only that Obama carried the state but also that Democratic party affiliation in Indiana exceeded the GOP by nine percentage points, it looks less than wizardly that Dems didn’t bother putting up a senate opponent for Lugar in 2006. Lugar ran unopposed in 2006, but can’t even win his own primary in 2012? –Q whether that’s a major sea change, or another polite major-party bargain to ignore the popular voice.
  • That Lugar’s giving a false home address for decades went unremarked does not speak well either for political participation in Indiana or for national political reporting. If memory serves, Indiana was represented exclusively as a ‘red state’ in the 2008 elections, with no media reportage of the Dem party advantage in the state. Typically, that kind of thing gets reported only after Dems have lost the advantage; no media outlets reported that Dems outnumbered Repubs in Texas, either—until Gallup argued that Obama should have won even more states than he did, in the link above. The bright spot here is that the large media outlets have lost so much credibility in political reporting that most people know to get their information elsewhere.
  • Democrats have shown the sense to field solid candidates in all Indiana congressional districts, contesting some held by the GOP and leaving no current GOP Reps to coast to reelection unopposed. The GOP nominees all defeated Tea Party challenges except for incumbent Marlin Stutzman in the 3rd District, a Tea Partyer himself; he is challenged by Pastor Kevin Boyd (D). Two women House nominees are Democrats, Shelli Yoder in the 9th District and Tara Nelson in Indiana’s 4th District.
  • Indiana’s 5th District has State Rep. Scott Reske (D) facing GOP former U.S. Attorney Susan Brooks. The seat opened up through the retirement of Rep. Dan Burton (R). If Brooks won, she would be the first woman elected to the House by Indiana Republicans in more than fifty years. Brooks is a self-declared ‘anti-choice’ candidate linked to funding Planned Parenthood. One of the GWBush U.S. Attorneys (Southern District of Indiana) not fired, she like Mourdock is receiving heavy anti-labor support.
  • Indiana’s 6th District also has a good House contest, GOP Rep. Mike Pence leaving to run for governor. Bradley T. Bookout is the Dem nominee, a strong contestant in a Republican district against a far-right ‘young gun’ GOPer, Luke Messer. Messer like Brooks has received funding from the anti-labor ‘Citizens for a Working America’, based in Virginia.
  • In the governor’s race, the dubious Pence faces Dem attorney and former state house speaker John R. Gregg. Gregg also hosts an Indiana radio call-in talk show.
  • Unfortunately, the Indiana state legislature is so horrendously gerrymandered that only devoted legwork from the ground up will retrieve anything. State Democrats stupidly engaged in same when they were in office, leaving a field depleted of grassroots credibility for the GOP to move in on and take over in 2010.

 

Renee Ellmers

North Carolina:

  • Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton won the Democratic primary outright to run against GOPer Pat McCrory for governor. The North Carolina governorship has been Democratic for twenty years, although the GOP has money advantage. Top of the ticket is a boost in NC, which Barack Obama carried in 2008. Dems will have to work to keep the Pale-Blue-Dog media from torpedo-ing this one.
  • The Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor is former Director of State Personnel Linda Coleman.
  • More notoriously, of course, an anti-same-sex marriage amendment was added to the NC state constitution. Setting aside larger issues for the narrowly political assessment, this move in other states has yet to augment GOP successes in fall elections following. Nut-right victories are usually followed by general-electorate pullback, a point that has yet to be noticed in most ‘insider’ political commentary. These are not inspirational moves, and they offer nothing for most young voters.
  • Weird-right GOP nominees and incumbents Virginia Foxx in North Carolina’s 5th District and Renee Ellmers in the 2nd face solid Dem challengers—Elisabeth Motsinger and retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Steve Wilkins. Foxx is on recent record criticizing people who take out student loans. Foxx, on G. Gordon Liddy’s radio show, proclaimed that she worked her way through college without borrowing—although her husband did take out some loans. No record of whether Foxx knows about the gap between 2012 college tuition and entry-level pay, or about the difference between 2012 and 1961, when she started college. While Foxx’s early self-support and commitment to her own education are laudable, it might be noted that Foxx has had what Repubs call ‘government jobs’ since 1987. That’s 25 straight years of ‘government jobs’.
  • The Democratic challenger in the 10th District is NC Rep. Patricia Keever. The incumbent is another GWBush appointee, Patrick McHenry. McHenry was among other things one of Karl Rove’s men in the 2000 political campaign. He is another long-time labor-hater, having worked for Bush’s Sec. of Labor, Elaine Chao, as a Special Assistant.

 

Mountaintop removal in WV revisited

West Virginia:

  • Obama did not carry West Virginia before, in either the primary or the general in 2008, and has little chance of doing so this time—even if the mind rejects an image of West Virginians turning out enthusiastically to vote for Mitt Romney. Sadly for it, West Virginia is not a makeweight in presidential politics, and its unimportance this primary season was highlighted by the relative success of a Texas inmate named Keith Judd as the mickey-mouse candidate who got votes. Sadly, the declining population of the state is preyed upon by vested interests. West Virginia is one of the states that most benefited from the New Deal and the Rural Electrification Administration, but any populace that sees the president as a ‘muslim’ gets little chance at a better life now.
  • That said, Democratic Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and Sen. Joe Manchin are both incumbents, and neither faces a strong challenger. Tomblin’s is conservative Republican Bill Maloney, who has no experience in public office but ran a drilling company and was involved in planning the successful rescue of the trapped Chilean miners. Manchin’s is businessman John R. Raese, who lost to him before in the campaign with the infamous ‘hick’ ad. Raese also lost elections in 1984, 1988, and 2006.
  • Dems nominated two women, Robin Jean Davis and Kanawha County attorney Letitia Chafin, for seats on the West Virginia Supreme Court. Davis is also an incumbent. Reportedly the races will be expensive. The combination of low education levels and a dearth of viable newspapers means that WV, like Tennessee and Kentucky, is targeted by lobbyists against legislation and regulation in the public interest. Fertile fields.

 

Wisconsin:

 

More later

The 2012 GOP primaries–Delegate math and stupid ridicule

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Math wins, numbers of voters still count in elections–open convention coming?

 

GOP candidates 2012

Another cluster of primaries, a new current argument about the GOP primary season. Now the question hovering over the political reporting is whether Newt Gingrich can be pummeled into getting out of the race. His sister suggests not. Candace Gingrich-Jones, in an excellent performance of The Accidental Activist, by Rebecca Gingrich-Jones, suggested that Gingrich is likely to stay in as long as he likes, which would be until Tampa. Q&A following the play did nothing to dispel the suggestion. Gingrich himself repeated yesterday, following the Mississippi and Alabama primaries, that he will stay in until the convention—“trying to make sure we have an open convention.” Gingrich Super PAC advisor Rick Tyler, reprising an appearance on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, backed him up. “We’ll just have it out at the convention.”

Candace Gingrich-Jones

Nonetheless, at the moment pushing Newt out of the race seems to be a first objective among the chattering classes, and they make no bones about overt displays of intent. The rationale remains oddly vague. The clearest version of an argument yet presented for muscling Gingrich out by commentary—or by ignoring him, which isn’t happening yet–seems to be that eliminating Gingrich would set up a one-on-one race (Ron Paul disregarded) between a more ‘moderate’ candidate and a ‘genuine conservative’. This line of thought is voiced explicitly by some arch-rightwing strategists on air and in print—who seem to think it follows as the night the day that Santorum will then beat Romney.

 

Santorum, family

There is something nasty about bullying and gang-ridiculing (even) Newt Gingrich, because he came in a close second in two southern states. The same gut response sets up when the same nominally intelligent people ridicule Mitt Romney for coming in a close third after trying out the local food and the local dialect in the South. Ridicule should be used against tyranny, against the powerful—not at the moment when you think you have the upper hand. Furthermore, you should ridicule as an individual, exercising skepticism as part of independent judgment. Lemmings don’t ridicule effectively. Neither do weathervanes. Furthermore again, ridicule should be used as a weapon on behalf of the defenseless. Ridicule candidates when they go along with torture and talk tough about bombing campaigns, not for superficialities.

Speaking of talking tough, does anyone ever ask Santorum about his military service?

But back to that Gingrich question, i.e. whether he can be pushed out of the primary contest by collective pressure from on-air and print commentators and political strategists—

 

And back to that rationale—

First, anyone who calls Romney a moderate, now, must be ignoring everything the candidate has said in the entire 2012 election cycle.* A contest between Romney and Santorum would not be a contest of moderate versus conservative.

With or without Gingrich, the GOP contest would still be a contest of greater population density versus less population density, for the most part. Vermont was an exception, and Utah is likely to be another; this is not an all-or-nothing picture. But the GOP primaries have established that the dividing line for the Romney-Santorum-Gingrich-Paul foursome is rural appeal versus metropolitan/suburban appeal.

As previously written, Santorum has had the less populated counties almost to himself, in most states, while the other candidates have been battling it out for more populated areas. Again, if the pattern holds, then Santorum should have an edge in states where sparsely populated congressional districts outweigh metropolitan districts.

That doesn’t mean an equal race. The number of votes is key in elections, even in these cynical times. Population is key, and—follow me closely here—population is greater in areas of greater population density than in areas of less population density. Let me repeat that, for the benefit of commentators and others (including Santorum) currently ridiculing the word “math”: there are more people in areas of greater population density than in areas of less population density. That comparison knocks out Texas, California and New York for Santorum, while possibly leaving in Missouri, Indiana and Nebraska. Doesn’t seem like an equal race.

Side note:

Why on earth doesn’t the Romney campaign just run a television ad with that clip of Santorum inveighing against birth control? Voice-over: “You really think this guy can beat President Obama?”

 

But back to the remaining 2012 primary season. Admittedly, the comparison of more populous regions to less is softened by proportional representation—which was intended partly to give rural counties and districts more of a say, as in the senate side of our bicameral legislature. In a number of the remaining contests, delegates are awarded according to proportions drawn up by the states. But several of the remaining states where Romney can be expected to win are winner-take-all, including California, New Mexico and New Jersey. Almost all of the states where Santorum can realistically hope to finish ahead are proportional-representation, Indiana being an exception and Wisconsin possibly. Even the New York primary is only modified proportional, though it is hard to see how any anti-birth-control candidate could do well there.

Here again is a run-down of the remaining contests, picking the top finisher using the metric of population, with their delegate allocation defined where feasible:

  • Missouri March 17  Santorum, 52 delegates
  • Puerto Rico March 18  Romney, 23 delegates  Winner-take-all statewide
  • Illinois March 20  Romney, 69 delegates
  • Louisiana March 24  Close three-way race, one of Santorum’s better hopes, 46 delegates  Proportional
  • DC April 3  Romney, 19 delegates  Winner-take-all statewide
  • Maryland April 3  Romney, 37 delegates  Winner-take-all combined
  • Wisconsin April 3  Maybe Santorum, 42 delegates  Winner-take-all combined
  • Connecticut April 24  Romney, 28 delegates  Winner-take-all at 50%+
  • Delaware April 24  Romney, 17 delegates  Winner-take-all statewide
  • New York April 24  Romney, 95 delegates  Winner-take-all at 50%+
  • Pennsylvania April 24  Romney, 72 delegates
  • Rhode Island April 24  Romney, 19 delegates  Proportional
  • Indiana May 8  Santorum, 46 delegates  Winner-take-all combined
  • North Carolina May 8  Close three-way, something for Santorum, 55 delegates  Proportional
  • West Virginia May 8  Santorum, 31 delegates  Proportional
  • Nebraska May 15  Santorum, 35 delegates
  • Oregon May 15  Maybe Santorum, 28 delegates  Proportional
  • Arkansas May 22  Santorum, 36 delegates  Proportional/mixed
  • Kentucky May 22  Santorum, 45 delegates  Proportional
  • Texas May 29  Romney/Gingrich, 155 delegates  Proportional
  • California June 5  Romney, 172 delegates  Winner-take-all combined
  • Montana June 5  Maybe Santorum, 26 delegates
  • New Jersey June 5  Romney, 50 delegates Winner-take-all statewide
  • New Mexico June 5  Romney, 23 delegates  Proportional
  • South Dakota June  5  Maybe Santorum, 28 delegates Proportional
  • Utah June 26  Romney, 40 delegates Winner-take-all statewide

A lucid and simple statement: “It is virtually impossible for a candidate to win a majority of the Republican delegates before June 2012.”

 

Once again: Santorum has shown an advantage in rural areas, Romney/Gingrich in metro areas. Anyone who hypothesizes that Santorum could pick up another 800 to 900 delegates in the remaining states, with Gingrich out, is welcome to demonstrate how.

 

Sometimes it is difficult to understand how any analyst more concerned with ‘narrative’ than with accuracy got on television in the first place. On the other hand, maybe that’s how.

 

But even on their own terms, the narrative guys are being more than a tad inconsistent. There could be few more compelling stories in the GOP primary season than an open convention coming in Tampa—and that’s the one they choose to omit? By ridiculing ‘math’ and ‘delegate count’? What’s next—ridiculing spelling and grammar?

 

Former GOP Chairman Michael Steele, by the way, is  now talking openly about a “contested convention.”

 

 

 

* These are the same people who also assert that Romney will ‘tack to the middle’ in a general election campaign, if he gets the nomination, and that the American people will not listen until then anyway, and that he might well get away with it if he does, etc. They have a vested interest in a ‘close’ election, however contrary to the best interests of the public another close election would be. They tend to have the same vested interest every election. That’s why, throughout the eighties and nineties, we seldom got substantive issues raised in presidential election campaigns—and when they did get raised, the discussion typically conduced to an outcome at variance with the public interest.

The 2012 southern strategy and a GOP pincer movement on Afghanistan

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2012 southern strategy and the giant pincer movement on Afghanistan

 

In Afghanistan

 

The political equation of winning-and-losing is far from the most important point about Afghanistan. The shooting spree by a U.S. soldier who apparently had a nervous breakdown and shot Afghan civilians, including women and children, is only the most recent dreadful event.

Not one Afghani was on those planes on September 11, 2001. Not one. The only connection between Afghanistan and the paired, parallel attacks of 9/11 was Osama bin Laden, encamped with his wealth in the ruling regime over the hapless Afghanis.

There was also not one political reporter in the national political press in Washington, D.C., who pointed out this fact in the heyday of George W. Bush’s popularity after 9/11.

The Afghan people—much as they undoubtedly hated foreigners on Islamic territory—had about as much say in regard to bin Laden’s presence as television viewers in the U.S. today have in regard to the number of commercials on cable television. Or less, since theoretically our elected officials could brace up the FCC and control paid commercials on air time that subscribers have already paid for.

 

Ron Paul

On the campaign trail, the only Republican candidate who comes close to persuasive sanity on the Middle East is still Ron Paul, whose views have been consistent throughout his years in Congress.

 

Gingrich

A new development looms, however, politically speaking. On yesterday morning’s talk shows, Newt Gingrich began making little noises about pulling out of Afghanistan. Not a clarion call, still a deviation from the usual bellicosity. Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, as always, continue to call for more bloodshed, and even the concept of an end in sight—some day—continues to be disparaged or ridiculed. So on one side of the argument, as the GOP presidential campaign swings through the South, you have Paul and to some extent Gingrich; on the other you have Romney and Santorum.

 

Santorum

In narrowly political terms, it’s a lose-lose for the president, as always with these guys, in a situation not of Obama’s making. If Obama succeeds in getting us out of Afghanistan—as most decent people hope—it will be too soon for Romney, Santorum and the professional saber rattlers, no matter when it is. If we remain mired in Afghanistan, there will be hints from the Gingrich types that more could be done to get out.

There is always an underlying tension between GOP voters who are primarily evangelicals, on one hand, and GOPers who are primarily fans of militarism. There is also a tension between extreme militarists and genuine fiscal conservatives. Wars cost treasure as well as blood. The uneasy overlap among the three big ‘wings’ of the party—rightwing Christians, rightwing monetarists, and rightwing militarists—also goes largely unreported in a press contingent eager to play up divisions among Latinos or other Democratic voters.

It will be interesting to see whether Gingrich’s most recent comments on Afghanistan affect his results in tomorrow’s southern primaries in Alabama and Mississippi, for better or worse. He has sagged somewhat in polls over the past couple of days.

 

The word was

Meanwhile, in the South, the campaigns are working hard. Voters (including Democratic voters) across the Mississippi Delta are being inundated with robo-calls from the Romney campaign. One asks the householder to stay on the line for a telephone ‘town meeting’ with Rick Santorum, who is heard saying (2008) that Romney is the only choice. Another offers a recorded conversation between Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi, agreeing on something. Another brings the recorded voice of former NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw, announcing that Gingrich has been censured by Congress on ethics charges.

Speaking of the FCC.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, Romney is being castigated for the wrong things. Far too many commentators are harpooning his harmless “grits” comments–about liking grits, about eating the local food while in the South. Far too few are taking him to task for being in favor of apparently every war, everywhere, regardless of the cost to other Americans and to other human beings.

 

But the establishment GOP has been given a free pass on that for years.

The 2012 GOP Southern Strategy–a Brokered Convention?

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2012 Gingrich’s Southern strategy and delegate count–GOP primaries

 

Gingriches in Alabama

The campaign to darken history continues, as the GOP primary season scrolls on to further proving grounds for Newt Gingrich’s (infamous) southern strategy. Alabama and Mississippi come March 13 and Louisiana March 24. The March calendar also includes March 10 caucuses in Kansas and the islands, the Missouri caucuses with 52 delegates at stake and the Illinois primary with 69, but Gingrich is not considered a threat (to other candidates) in those. The three old Deep South states offer 136 delegates, and Gingrich supporters give every sign of expecting to get at least some of them, counterbalancing the 240 or so on which Gingrich has no southern claim. Farther down the road come North Carolina on May 8 (55 delegates), Arkansas on May 22 (36), and the granddaddy of them all, Texas on May 29 (155).

Gingrich supporter Rick Tyler


In this context a Gingrich supporter, Rick Tyler, gave a thought-provoking elucidation last night on cable. Tyler, billed as a Gingrich attack dog, resigned from the Gingrich campaign when it imploded after the Gingriches’ Greek cruise and Tiffany bills in 2011, but is now senior adviser to the pro-Gingrich super PAC ‘Winning Our Future’. Tyler’s own views on race in the public discourse leave something to be desired, to put it nicely; he’s one of those So-are-you types at best. Most recently, with 40 or so advertisers pulling out of Rush Limbaugh’s show, Tyler has come out front and center with a big ad buy. At that, it might be a good buy. Few Gingrich voters are liable to be perturbed by Limbaugh’s comments. The price might even be down right about now; Limbaugh’s not saying.

But in spite of his peculiar views and the eccentricities of the Gingrich campaign—again putting it nicely–Tyler gave the clearest explanation yet of why Gingrich should stay in the race. Lawrence O’Donnell on The Last Word challenged Tyler with the assertion that Romney needs Gingrich to stay in the race, to keep Romney from being defeated by Rick Santorum one-on-one. Tyler countered, and this is where it gets interesting, that Santorum, rather than Romney, needs Gingrich to stay in.

From the transcript:

O’Donnell:

“And Super Tuesday failed to do what it usually does–convince at least one candidate to drop out of the race. Santorum needs Gingrich to drop out. Gingrich needs Santorum to drop out. Well, we`re going to have a Gingrich/Santorum showdown tonight in the spotlight.”

Introducing Tyler and Santorum supporter Eric Metaxas, O’Donnell opens with everyone’s question:

“Eric, the–Santorum is beating Gingrich consistently in these things. All you have to do is add Gingrich`s total to Santorum`s larger number and you have a wipe out of Mitt Romney in all these campaigns. What does Rick Santorum have to do to convince not Newt Gingrich, but other Republicans to rise up and say, come on, let’s narrow this race?”

Metaxas argues that Santorum is the one the Obama administration is really afraid of, and electable.

O’Donnell moves on to Tyler, again with everyone’s question:

“Well, Rick Tyler, the national polls don`t show that Mitt Romney has any particular advantage over Rick Santorum running against President Obama. And your guy is just falling behind, further and further behind. Why? Why, Rick?

Why prolong this? . . . You heard Steve Schmidt say that a vote for Gingrich is a vote for Romney. How can you let that happen?”

Tyler answers smartly, “Well, Steve Schmidt managed the John McCain campaign. So I`ll just leave it at that.”

Going on,

“But look, we put a lot of effort into Georgia because we felt like we had to win Georgia. We probably over-invested in Georgia, spent too much time and money there.

But it was OK. We had a decisive win. I`m out here in Mississippi and Alabama. That`s the next step. Let me–we heard a lot about calculations today. The calculation has actually changed somewhat. The calculation is that–put out by the Romney campaign, who has no ability to beat Barack Obama–in fact, David Axelrod did a conference call today laying out why he couldn`t beat Barack Obama, because Mitt Romney has used up his last half life, and he has just wiped out his support for the middle class and independent voters.

So he has just destroyed his ability to beat Barack Obama. And you pointed out in the first segment that more people showed up for Barack Obama than showed up for the Republicans. That`s because of the negative campaigning that`s been going on.”

Interesting observation from a Gingrich man. But moving on—

“But let me just put this calculation on the table. The hurdle for Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum to catch up with Mitt Romney is only equaled by the hurdle of Mitt Romney to actually arrive at the convention with the proper number of delegates. The calculation has changed in this way, Rick–it is not in Rick Santorum`s interest for Newt Gingrich to drop out of this race.

It is in Rick Santorum`s interests, believe it or not, for Newt to stay in the race and to collect as many delegates, as Rick should do, to keep Mitt Romney from getting the requisite number of delegates to arrive in Tampa. And in that–doing that, after the first ballot, which Mitt Romney will fail to win, then Rick Santorum would have a genuine chance at winning an open floor fight. [emphasis added]

But he doesn`t have a chance otherwise, because he has no ability to beat Mitt Romney and his organization and his money.

O`DONNELL: Rick, I just have to follow up with that. Of course he has the ability to beat him. You look at Michigan. You look at Ohio. Romney bombed Santorum with money in Ohio. And if Newt Gingrich wasn`t in the race, Santorum would have beaten him decisively.

TYLER: Explain that theory to me in California. Explain that theory to me in New Jersey. Explain that theory to me in New York. That theory doesn`t hold up. Those are big states. And Mitt Romney will decisively beat Rick Santorum in those states, because he`s going to out-spend him.

He out-spent him in Ohio by almost four to one. The calculation is if you can keep Mitt Romney from out-spending you by three to one, you might win. But if he out-spends you by four to one, then you`re going to lose. And that was–that is what would happen to Rick Santorum.”

O`Donnell turns back to Metaxas:

“ . . . Eric, what Rick is essentially saying is OK, hey, everybody, let`s just keep playing. It seems pretty clear to us that even Romney isn`t going to get the delegates he needs in the election process to go into the convention with the nomination.

So we will all show up in Florida with our delegates, and then we can talk. And if Rick–and if Rick Santorum`s way ahead of Newt Gingrich, then maybe there`s some kind of deal to be made. Let`s just wait until Florida.

What`s wrong with that?”

Metaxas responds with the inevitable POV on Gingrich:

“Listen, I think they really believe that. So it`s hard for me to tell them not to do that. I don`t believe that. I think that–listen, a lot of the votes for Romney are very pragmatic votes. A lot of people don`t love Romney, but they would vote for him. I`m certainly one of them.

However, people love Santorum. . .

If I thought Gingrich could win, that`s one thing. But at this point, I don`t think he can. I guess the question is, when will he see that? The point is, it really doesn`t matter what we think. Gingrich has to believe that he can`t win. For some reason, he still believes.

I mean, he`s come back from the dead twice. I think he still believes he can do it. I simply don`t. I think Santorum is going to go a lot further.

The question is when will Gingrich see what everybody else is seeing? And I don`t know that he ever does that.”

O’Donnell goes back to Tyler:

“Rick Tyler, you seem to be saying that it isn`t about winning, that the Gingrich world has given up the idea that he can actually win the nomination through the election process. And you`re just in the business of getting delegates out of this proportional outcomes that you can get in various states, and just seeing how many you end up with when you go to Florida?”

Tyler:

“No, the key to winning is getting the most delegates to vote for you at the convention. That still remains operative. Look, Newt Gingrich is behind–60 delegates behind Rick Santorum. He could wipe out that difference in Mississippi and Alabama alone. There`s 150 delegates—”

“O`DONNELL: OK. But what if he doesn`t? Let`s just go to Mississippi, where you are right now, OK? And it`s Gingrich`s neighborhood. If Rick Santorum goes in to those southern states and beats Newt Gingrich, is there any message Newt Gingrich can get from that to say, you know what, I really am in the way; I should get out of the way so this can be the conservative against the moderate flip-flopper Romney?”

TYLER: Well, that would be up to Speaker Gingrich. As you know, I would support Speaker Gingrich if he wants to go to the convention. I would support whatever he wants to do. I believe we will win Alabama and Mississippi, and we`ll have a new ball game.

I also believe this is what Newt Gingrich has said from the very beginning, if, in fact, he believed that Romney or Rick Santorum could actually beat Obama and change Washington, which neither of their records reflect that they would be able to do that–they would both accommodate Washington–then he would step aside.”

“He doesn`t see that in either of those candidates. And so why not give the people in Rankin County, Mississippi, the chance to vote for–vote for another conservative?”

O`DONNELL: Well, according to that formulation then, he`ll never step aside, because every poll shows President Obama beating every one of these guys. Rick, come on. Come on. You can`t keep things going like this.”

TYLER: Polls change.”

 

Thus the 622 delegates from Old South states where Gingrich can theoretically win a majority, especially since he has openly staked a claim on the territory, could actually make a difference. Gingrich and Santorum, the argument goes, can siphon away enough delegates from Romney to prevent Romney’s reaching the magic number of 1144.

Craig Crawford with Helen Thomas

And then the GOP would be heading to a brokered convention—which is what well-regarded analyst Craig Crawford has been suggesting could happen.

And then, gentlemen and ladies, we would be finished with all this nonsense of a more open, more democratized process for the GOP, with the Republican nominee for president chosen directly by the voters, or at least by voters motivated enough to get out and vote. The trajectory from state conventions with their back-room deals to state primaries either too little or too much controlled by party insiders would finish with a national convention with, presumably, back-room deals. In that scenario, btw, Ron Paul delegates could make a difference.

It is fascinating to consider what kind of job offer, if any, might induce either Gingrich or Santorum to reconsider their 2012 strategy.

 

Side note, and it shouldn’t be a side note:

Looking at these numbers, one wonders whether there is any slightest chance that either Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum will speak against racial bigotry at any point in the 2012 primary season. Given the tepid response to Rush Limbaugh’s slanderous and defamatory comments about a young female law student, it seems unlikely at the moment. But there is always a moment for conscience to surface.