Bachmann
The mainstream media has of late been needling Republican leadership about the birther issue. Since a recent poll now shows 51% of likely Republican primary voters think Barack Obama was born outside the United States, I think the media are right to press the issue. Most recently Rep. Michele Bachmann (potential GOP presidential candidate) was interviewed on Good Morning America, where she gave a tepid endorsement of Obama’s birthplace saying to “take him at his word”, but changed the subject when pressed for a more definitive statement. We’ve seen similar unwillingness to confront the Republican fringe from House Speaker John Boehner in an interview last Sunday.
Boehner
Has the intellectual capacity of the average GOP voter degraded to the point now where the next election could see Barack Obama and Joe Biden pitted against Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber?
The republican leadership has been warned – by none other then Karl Rove
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/49748.html
According to him the President is setting a trap.
“the next election could see Barack Obama and Joe Biden pitted against Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber?”
I hope so. You betcha. Also.
Palin will never get the GOP nomination. She will nominate herself and run as an independent; she’s just that grandiose. And President Obama can thank her for his second term
It’s in my daily prayers to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Anyone think the birther “issue” will be a wedge for the Republicans.
Karl Rove claims it’s a trap set by the White House that they can’t fall into. Karl Rove says it’s time to confront the Birthers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/17/karl-rove-birthers_n_824623.html
Just remember, if no candidate gets a majority in the Electoral College, the House of Representatives chooses the president.
She can start her own party. Let’s see if we can come up with a name for the party. How about “Bull Moose Party”?
Hey, lay off Teddy.
She would split the Repug vote. Obama would win the College.
President Palin would move the Capital to
the VaticanColorado Springs, and then say God told her to invade Iraq. Oh wait – that was Bush.I have to agree with misha. Although it is a possibility, Doc, I think the President would win enough blue and purple states to carry the college.
I love how Karl Rove is out there complaining that the Obama administration is using the stupidity of the die-hard anti-Obama base as a weapon against it… as if this were somehow Obama’s fault.
The hard right has been milking every imaginable grievance against Obama in order to score political points against him. Now that the base has been sold this crap, Rove & Co. are having second thoughts.
Justice is beautiful.
All Hail his Noodly Appendage! 😉
More like the “Know Nothings”
Obama is the consummate politician. “He’s got this.”
Agreed. She wouldn’t only be pulling from GOP votes. Obama would only carry even more states as a result. As states are mostly winner takes all, Obama’s electoral college landslide victory in such a scenario would more likely exceed his thumping of McCain.
Sorry – should read she WOULD only be pulling from GOP votes.
Sorry…getting tired. I was starting to type that she wouldn’t take votes away from Obama’s support, only from the GOP…then decided to shorten the point by rephrasing and forgot to accordingly switch conditionals.
Agreed! They no longer have control of the Frankenstein’s zombie monster they created and now they can’t stop it from turning on them and destroying them….
Well, Shrub never used a teleprompter, acording to GOP Rep. Steve Womack.
Actually, GWB often used the teleprompter (as do most professional speakers & pols these days)…he just flubbed enough of his statements and uttered so many laughable “bushims” that it only seemed like he spoke too poorly to actually have had a script to work from…
Right now, from where I sit, there are four political constituencies in the US:
1) The Lefties, relatively small (15%?), powerless, no voice in the national media, pretty much dismissed as loons.
2) The Center Right Pro Business Party, aka the Democratic Party, which distinguishes itself from (3) below only by being more “liberal” on “values” (sex, guns, religion) issues. I’d say 40%
3) The Center Right Pro Business Party-bis, aka the Republican Party, which distinguishes itself from (2) above only by being more “conservative” on “values” issues, but has been increasingly cannibalized by (4) below, so is down to 15%.
4) The Lunatic Moron Bigot Party, aka “Tea Party” and other right-wing factions, in favor of going back to the Middle Ages, hates non-whites, non-christians, foreigners, scientists, and “liberals” (defined as everyone from 1 to 3 above) — about 30%.
I’ll go as far as saying this is a pretty unique situation; I certainly can’t think of another country with that conundrum.
In regards to the electoral college, I’m curious if anyone has ever correlated those states that never turn blue to the states now sponsoring birther bills.
I’m not an Obama voter, but if that is the case, good on him. It would make me gleefully happy to see the birthers hoist on their own petard. To clarify, I do not think that Mr. Obama set out to trap anyone, but think he may recognize an opportunity when it presents itself.
Also, hates reproductive freedom.
It’s because we are locked in to a two-party system, instead of a parliament.
The states which never turn blue, closely correlates to the Confederacy.
Which not coincidentally is where the LuMoBi Party (Lunatic Moron Bigot) holds sway as well.
Thanks!
I guess “never” really IS a long time.
Have a look at Australia.
You have a point, however, IIRC, I think Arizona went to Clinton both times.
In this photograph, Shrub is using two ‘prompters.
The one on the left says “mission,” and the one on the right says “accomplished.” Both say “stand here stupid.”
In college, I was a Trotskyite; later, a kibbutznik. I’ve calmed waaaay down.
A kibbutznik wants to marry, and have a family. So he put an ad in Haaretz: Man, mid-20s, kibbutznik, wishes to meet like minded woman for marriage. Please send picture of your tractor.
I saw a parody once where an observant man who wore tzizit, a beard, and payes desired to meet women who wore the same….
Rove is projecting.
Obama did not file 90 failed lawsuits and encourage such circus acts like Orly and Mario to be the face of this carnival of the stupid people.
now that the cynical & pandering gop have finally caught their beast, we can all watch them go down with it …
from the booman tribune (july 2010, emphases mine):
There are polls today (and granted it’s very early) that say that a slim majority of Americans wouldn’t vote for Obama in 2012. Of course, popular vote doesn’t count (pun intended). I haven’t looked at state-by-state polls.
A woman in Brooklyn is 30, and still lives at home. She puts an ad in the paper: Orthodox woman, 30, never married wishes to meet like minded man for matrimony.
Every day she rushes home to the mailbox. Finally, there’s a letter. She rushes up to their apartment, bursts inside and shouts, “look mama. A letter from the paper!!”
“Well, open it already.”
She tears the envelope open, and bursts into tears.
Her mother asks, “darling, what’s wrong?!”
“It’s from daddy.”
> a slim majority of Americans wouldn’t vote for Obama in 2012
Which is, of course, a totally different statement than “a slim majority of Americans would vote for another candidate in 2012”. 😉
I go by Intrade. They have an accuracy of 90%. Right now they have Obama at 60%.
http://www.intrade.com > most traded political
They were wrong about Sharron Angle and Tancredo, and right about everything else.
I really wish I would have put down a few hundred dollars on hillary to win the new hampshire primary. I would have walked away with a pretty hefty sum
One notes the article: Will the GOP 2012 nominee be a ‘birther’? at The Grio.
http://www.thegrio.com/politics/will-the-gop-2012-nominee-be-a-birther.php
As you said, we all know its not the popular vote that matters, bu that only the state by state wins really count to give us the electoral college total, which are mostly winner take all.
Any polls I’ve seen to date with state breakdowns on people’s opinion of Obama show that the numbers of those that disapprove of him are significantly greater in many of the “Confederate South” states. (Gee, no surprise there)…
…So when combined to a simple total, it seems fairly apparent that those Southern states are significantly skewing the overall picture.
He won quite handidly (365 EV to 163 EV) without most of those states last time. (Obama *did* carry NC, VA, FL in 2008) and with ONLY CO, NM, NV and NE-3 in the non-coastal “West”.
Any 3rd-party candidate coming in from the right that actually turned things into a “3 way race” (especially a SP) would pretty much ONLY pull votes away from GOP support, not Obama’s.
If anything, that would be more likely to result in any “close” states that would otherwise be a GOP gain ending in Obama’s column instead.
(Obama barely lost MO by only a 0.13% margin difference, MT by only 2.38% and GA by 5.2%…if you go as far as assuming a Tea Party candidate could pull 10% swing, that could easily flip another 4-5 states to Obama…)
Thanks for the article link. Interesting read. If anything, I think fringe elements such as the birthers & the Tea Party are likely to lead to a 3rd-party RW candidate emerging if the GOP’s eventual nominee isn’t sufficiently crazy enough for the rabid portion of the base. As I said before, all I think this would do is split the conservative vote and favor Obama’s reelection even more.