Sometimes, there is crying in politics

"Are you crying? There's no crying in baseball!" -- Jimmy Dugan, as played by Tom Hanks

Yesterday at a Mothers forum in Iowa, Newt Gingrich had an emotional moment talking about his Mother, who had suffered from bipolar issues. It wasn't a big sobfest as the media made it out to be... hardly any tears at all...but I certainly think it didn't help his chances to win the Iowa caucuses.

Perception can be huge in politics. Michele Bachmann had a top staffer abandon her campaign to go and work for Ron Paul. A SuperPac switched loyalties from her to Mitt Romney. As a result, her image and standing have taken a huge hit, and she is faltering badly in the polls. She's going to lose and finish near the back of the pack. Even though she technically didn't do anything wrong to deserve that. People just felt she couldn't win, and they are walking away in big numbers.

MSNBC host Chris Matthews savaged Newt Gingrich on his program. He went around asking all the people in the Java Joes coffee shop in Des Moines if they felt Newt was faking it, or if it was real, or if Newt was too emotional or "just tired" from the campaign. All of them had various answers, but nobody actually stood up and defended Newt.

Matthews also had a very touching, very insightful dialogue about "crying in politics". He mentioned Ed Muskie in 1972 and a variety of other candidates who has been caught crying during their campaign...including Hillary Clinton.

Matthews delivered a fantastic monologue about how there often is crying in politics. He mentioned how sometimes it happens in an election night hotel ballroom full of dejected supporters. Sometimes it happens on Air Force One on the way back to a White House that you need to move out of in the next 60 days. But it happens. More often than you think.

I don't think Newt was overly emotional yesterday.

It wasn't this moment that is going to do him in. It was the 30-40 million dollars in negative TV ads being run by his opponents in Iowa. That was what sunk him.

A month ago Newt Gingrich was flying high, his stellar debate performances had him topping the polls in just about every state. Then his opponents decided to land some body blows on the new front-runner with negative TV advertising.

Newt didn't have the money to fight back, and it is going to cost him the White House.

That fact is something that just might be worth crying about.

Win Iowa, Rick!

Obama/Clinton 2012?

There is an interesting article out there today by Robert Reich that mentions the possibility of an Obama/Clinton ticket in 2012.

Reich suggests that Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden swap job titles. Biden becomes Secretary of State and Clinton becomes the VP candidate in 2012.

Reich is a smart man, and this would be a clever play by the Democrats to get Obama re-elected.

Hillary supporters would turn out in large numbers to get America its first female Vice-President.

However, I don't think this is going to happen.

Hillary Clinton is getting older and seems to think she is done with politics.

She has stated that she doesn't plan to continue her job after 2012. She sounds like she is retiring. But you never know -- she might be talked in to it if Obama is struggling in the polls.

The second reason I don't see it happening?

Obama doesn't trust the Clintons.

A lot of the Clintons political enemies end up committing suicide in very unusual ways.

No More "Cornhusker Kickbacks"!!

Wonderful news today as Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska announces that he will retire and not seek re-election in 2012. His decision was probably best for everyone involved.

Nelson became derided as one of Americas most hated political figures after he became the vote that flipped and gave the Democrats the magical number to pass Obamacare.

In order to secure his vote, the Democrats used all types of bribery...eventually offering him the biggest bribe ever in Congressional history.

The Cornhusker Kickback.

Democratic Senators wanted Obamacare to pass so badly they eventually offered to make all medical costs free for people in Nebraska. It was the honey that Nelson could not resist.

Even some Democrats in Nebraska were offended by this act of public corruption, and Nelson was facing declining chances of being re-elected, anyway.

This gives the Republicans a dominating chance to take this seat and help win back the Senate to Republican control.

As a side note, if I am elected to Congress this fall, I intend to act with fellow House Republicans to launch an investigation into the Cornhusker Kickback. If necessary, I intend to see some of my fellow Congressman arrested and jailed for their involvement with this act of bribery involving public funds.

Senator Nelson and Senator Landrieu need to spend time in a jail cell to discourage this type of political corruption in the future.

Newt : "Victory or Death"

Newt Gingrich tells a charming story about General Washingtons Christmas Day attack on Hessian forces near Trenton, New Jersey.

It reminds me of this funny poster below.




Newt sure can tell a good story.
I think he has a great career ahead of him as a narrator, because I don't think he's going to be President. He is too prone to the odd statement or the emotional outburst.

He will probably sink himself.

But in many ways, Gingrich reminds me of General Washington.

Wandering around in the wilderness, desperate, and broke.

Then in the debates he comes running in and quickly sticks the knife in everyone.

Turns things around completely.

Newt is facing his own "Victory or Death" moment in the next few weeks.

He might be able to pull it out.

I'm certainly not going to bet against him.

He has already made the media look foolish for pronouncing his campaign "dead" before even one debate had been held.

The Republican Party of Virginia needs a revolution!

If you haven't heard the latest news, several of the leading GOP candidates for President will not appear on voters ballots in this 2012 primary season.

Why? That's a very good question.

I have never been fond of ballot restrictions of any kind. They only discourage people from being involved in politics, and they are basically designed to help keep the status quo in power.

What possible reason does Virginia have to keep people off a ballot?

The only reason I can think of is that you might want to require more than $5 and your own signature so that you don't have half the town running for office as some type of prank. But even this is a bit of a dangerous trespass into Constitutionally guaranteed rights to participate in elections.

10,000 signatures? This is clearly oppressive, and might even be illegal.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was established specifically because local jurisdictions were doing things that were discriminatory. They were trying to keep people off ballots and stop them from voting.

I think this set of rules in Virginia would not withstand a court challenge. The practice is discriminatory against everyone who is not a well-funded and highly-staffed candidate. Basically, lawyers can argue these signature requirements fall under the Voters Rights Act, because these rules are preventing people from participating in elections.

I know about these drawbacks personally. The City of Los Angeles has restrictive rules that require 500 valid signatures from registered voters to get on a ballot. Again, this requirement is unfair to underfunded or understaffed campaigns. In certain sections of the city, there are very few registered voters! We have one pinhead of a City Councilman who regularly wins elections in his district with 2,000 to 3,000 votes total in a city of 6 million people. Yet he and any interested opponent are required to go out and search for those 500 registered voters, even though they may be difficult to find.

Virginia may be concerned that making their rules too lax may result in chaos. They may be afraid of a situation like the California recall election of 2003, where there ended up being 135 different candidates for Governor, including a porn star (Mary Carey) and a comic actor (Gary Coleman). Yet somehow, voters managed to wade through page after page of candidates, and they managed to avoid voting for the porn star and the comic actor. They voted for Arnold Schwarzenegger, who in a weird way ended up being a little bit of both.

Now the Republican Party of Virginia, in their total ineptness, has decided to disqualify a man who has already served as the third most powerful elected official in America. A man named Newt Gingrich.. who actually lives in Virginia!

Virginia needs to change their rules and change them quick.

When you disqualify FIVE of the seven candidates for President, your system is broken.

The fact that it was the Republican Party of Virginia checking these signatures and disqualifying people from the ballot is absolutely unacceptable. I consider this an act of fratricide, and the Virginia GOP needs to pay a price for this.

I strongly suggest an uprising from the GOP members in Virginia.

County Party leaders need to quit in massive numbers. They also need to threaten to stop all financial support of the Virginia GOP. They need to threaten to form alternative organizations.

This ballot nonsense in Virginia is unacceptable. Many voters have already watched these candidates debate on national TV for several hours.

There is absolutely no justifiable reason to keep them off the ballot.

Those idiots who say "rules are rules" don't get the bigger picture.

If Virginia has the right to demand 10,000 valid signatures, then Florida has the right to demand 50,000 signatures. And of course, stupid California would then probably demand 1,000,000 valid signatures.

2,011 years later.....