Super Tuesday shenanigans?

So John McCain Mike Huckabee won West Virginia. Sounds like Mitt Romney is accusing John McCain and Mike Huckabee of a back-room deal to push support to Huckabee if McCain became not-viable at the convention.

So now Romney is upset at being victimized by the political game:

“Unfortunately, this is what Sen. McCain’s inside Washington ways look like: He cut a backroom deal with the tax-and-spend candidate he thought could best stop Gov. Romney’s campaign of conservative change.”

Huckabee’s response? Humorous:

“I thought he was saying yesterday, ‘No whining.’ So is it no whining or whining? He can’t even keep a straight answer on the ‘whining or no whining’ question.”

I’ve determined that Mitt Romney is a shinier version of Doug Neidermeyer of Animal House and Twisted Sister fame. I’m waiting for Romney to pull a Doug Neidermeyer-esque outburst to cement his status as an idiot. On the heels of all his flip-flops, most recently his stoopid comments about Bob Dole, Mitt Romney continues to not understand national politics or the gravity of the statements he makes. He uses attack ads, yet complains of the same old Washington political process. He is acting like a petulant child, and if he doesn’t start to play the game better, he’ll have to go home and figure out to do with all his money. Boo-hoo.

Hillary Clinton is a liar.

The Clinton campaign has been running a negative ad on South Carolina radio that took Barack Obama’s words about the Republican Party “out of context”.

The add features Obama’s voice and his qoute: “The Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years.”

The voiceover comes back with these gems: “Really? Aren’t those the ideas that got us into the economic mess we’re in today? Ideas like special tax breaks for Wall Street. Running up a $9 trillion debt. Refusing to raise the minimum wage or deal with the housing crisis. Are those the ideas Barack Obama’s talking about?”

Classy. These are the actions of a desperate campaign that knows they are in terrible shape across the board, not just in South Carolina. The ad has since been pulled in favor of a more positive one, but the damage has been done. But to whom?

These days, folks may not be thinking for themselves, but there is a lot more information available to voters today than there has been in the past. I have to image that attack ads like these won’t be around much longer – people are too savvy (I hope) or cynical (more likely) to simply accept what they hear from ads endorsed by candidates as they may have been in the past. Simply check the Google and find out for yourself. Conversely, I can see a time where people won’t believe anything they hear, see, or read in reaction to the sheer amount of stuff there is to synthesize. Once again, this leads to the herd mentality where people will sole-source their information from one “trusted voice” and accept that as their opinion and move on.

Either way, I suppose we’re screwed. Craptacular.

Washington Post has more here.

Kerry endorses Obama.

Ok, so let me get this straight, John Kerry came out today and endorsed Barack Obama for president. Sure, fine it’s his right and probably a wise move. But, doesn’t anyone else think that he looks a bit disingenuous since John Edwards (you know, the guy that Kerry picked over all his other choices to be his vice-presidential running mate) is still in the race?

Doesn’t choosing someone to be your VP candidate kind of say, “this is the person who I think would be the best president if, God forbid, something ever happened to me.” Isn’t that kind of the purest presidential endorsement you can get? And, why isn’t anyone asking John Kerry this rather obvious yet awkward question?

Another very relevant question would be to ask what Kerry thinks happened to John Edwards in the last 4 years that has changed his “one heart beat away” status. Is there something about Edwards that Kerry has since learned or is he still eminently qualified to be president just not as qualified since Obama came around?

Wow, I am just blown away that the GOP was so able to portray this guy as a flip flopper.

Common sense words from the New Hampshire debates

Some of the best material coming out of the Republican and Democrat debates in New Hampshire came from the candidates with little or nothing to lose. Not a surprise, but it is unfortunate that the front runners cannot exhibit the same candor, the same degree of common sense.

Beginning with his comments on the Bush doctrine, Ron Paul said this:

“Well, I certainly agreed with his foreign policy that he ran on and that we as Republicans won in the year 2000 — you know, the humble foreign policy, no nation-building, don’t be the policeman of the world. And we were strongly critical of the policy of the Clinton administration, that did the opposite. And we fell short. Of course, the excuse is that 9/11 changed everything, but the Bush doctrine of preemptive war is not a minor change. This is huge. This is the first time we as a nation accept as our policy that we start the wars. I don’t understand this. And that all options are on the table to go after Iran? This — this is not — this is not necessary. These are third-world nations. They’re not capable.

“But I think it’s the misunderstanding or the disagreements that we’ve had in this debate along the campaign trail is the — the nature of the threat. I’m as concerned about the nature of the threat of terrorism as anybody, if not more so. But they don’t attack us because we’re free and prosperous. And there are radicals in all elements on — in — in all religions that will result to violence. But if we don’t understand that the reaction is — is because we invade their countries, we — and occupy their countries, we have bases in their country, and that we haven’t done it just since 9/11, but we have done that a long time.

“I mean, it was the Air Force base in Saudi Arabia before 9/11 that was given as the excuse. If we don’t understand that, we can’t win this war against terrorism.”

And this is among the reasons he is not invited to the Republican debate on Fox News. He couldn’t care less about Republican ideology. Largely due to the fact that he hasn’t always been a Republican, I suppose. As a friend of mine points out – “Why doesn’t he just say we should legalize marijuana? He could totally get away with it!”

Charlie later brought up the question of how can we afford a trillion-dollar war and not afford to provide healthcare for everyone, and Ron Paul once again spoke with logic and reason:

“Charlie, you really answered the question — you answered it in your question, because you said how can we afford a trillion-dollar war and we can’t afford health care? Well, that’s the reason. The resources are going overseas. We’re fighting a trillion- dollar war, and we shouldn’t be doing it. Those resources should be spent back here at home.”

He went on to criticize economic and monetary policy:

“We run up the deficits. We tax. We borrow. We borrow from the Chinese. We can’t borrow enough. Then what do we do? We print the money, and then you wonder where the inflation comes? The value of the dollar goes down and prices go up where the government gets involved in certain things, like housing or medical care or education. Prices are skyrocketing. So you have to deal with the monetary issue to solve the problem of the medical issue.”

He may lack the poise, polish, youth, or looks of his peers, but he speaks from his heart and his head without letting ideological spew get in the way. He won’t win, so what does he have to lose?

On Charlie’s question on the rising price of oil, and whether anyone wanted to simply state the truth about the future price of oil, and that it isn’t going to get any better:

“I’ll be glad to answer that question because it’s something I talk about all the time and it’s a very important question. The Wall Street Journal yesterday had a very good chart that explains this. If you look at the price of oil in the last 10 years, if you look at it in terms of dollars, it went up 350 percent. If you look at it in Euros, it went up about 200 percent. If you look at it in the price of gold, it stayed flat. It’s the inflation, it’s the printing of money, it’s the destruction of the value of the dollar.

“Added onto this, the notion that we go to protect our oil — oil was $27 when we went over there to get the oil and protect the oil and take the oil from Iraq. There’s less than — there’s less than about half the production now in Iraq right now and we’re threatening Iran, and that pushes prices up. It pushes up the concept of supply and demand.

“But you can’t deal with the price of oil without dealing with the supply and demand of dollars. When you devalue the dollar — and the dollar is going down every day, and the further the dollar goes down, the higher the prices of oil going up. We have to understand that. “

Again attacking the fiscal policy of the current administration. What I’d like to hear is how he proposes to solve this problem. Unfortunately, Ron Paul doesn’t get enough mic time to outline his “policy for change”. Since change is the watchword for the next month or so. He has some additional commentary on the importance of understanding monetary policy on his site.

More thoughts on this, and other common sense coming out of the debates.