2012 GOP Presidential Campaign -- "This individual's going to accuse me of an affair for an extended period of time."

lol

well this is touching

how is perry transformed

“I really started giving some thought about the issue of rape and incest,” Mr. Perry told a local pastor who had questioned whether he had changed his position on the issue. “Some powerful stories in that DVD.”

that kind of personnel move look like a huge admission of weakness, esp if there is no immediate health- or scandal-related reason to get rid of biden

Correct. Won't happen absent the latter.

I like this clemenza fellow and his support for my boyfriend, Mark Halperin.

“I really started giving some thought about the issue of rape and incest,” Mr. Perry told a local pastor who had questioned whether he had changed his position on the issue. “Some powerful stories in that DVD.”

ha my friend went to a fire safety training day & the guy concluded by intoning "I've seen some powerful fires ...... on video".

I think it will still be a very close race, because enthusiasm for Obama among liberals is rather tepid also.

Sure, but that's relative to whether it's support for him against Romney or against one of the more monstrous candidates, right? Romney's current attempts to slap on some monster make-up aside.

The “Aspergians have sex” story

actually i was surprised by the comments under this breathtakingly hateful NRO post. most were aghast at the poster's condescending attitude toward aspies - or in heather mcd's awful neologism "syndroids." reliably a couple trolls like jenna let rip, another d-bag compared the autism epidemic to global warming lol/smh.

the corner has become totally dominated by trolling and appears to be un-moderated or edited these days.

i mean, jesus, even for a right-wing website that post was just monstrously insensitive. you'd think a bunch of professional christians like the nro editors would exercise a little uh empathy for people struggling w/autism.

For relaxing times...make it Santorum time.

Not on the couch, dammit!

RT @CNNExpress: @OccupyCaucus vowed to obstruct Paul's Iowa office until RP promises to not close the EPA. #OccupyCaucus #RonPaul #iowacaucus

RP genocidal killer of Americans in the name of 'liberty'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=V4matEbGCBg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=V4matEbGCBg

f it

lol

is this shit even legal? http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2011/dec/29/tdmain01-va-gop-will-require-loyalty-oath-in-presi-ar-1573870

http://www.fangraphs.com/not/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/1245036228_41fab64009_o-229x300.jpghttp://www.fangraphs.com/not/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/RonPaulAstros-228x300.jpg

What a goofnugget.

is this shit even legal?

Primary elections for nominations within political parties are considered to be an internal affair of the party, so they have a much lower legal threshhold for pulling stupid shit like that. Think of the VA republicans as a bunch of shriners or masons and it becomes clearer just how idiotic their party rules can get without breaking any laws.

i keep seeing things like 'iowa is a caucus not a primary, so anything is possible". can someone explain to me what is different about a caucus (compared to what, a regular primary?) that makes this so?

In a primary election, the results are compiled statewide, so statistically speaking the local variations are smoothed out. As I understand it, with caucuses, each local caucus is a statistical unit, so local quirks and variations are preserved.

Another weirdness of caucuses is that attending a caucus requires a greater commitment of time and energy than going to a polling place, voting, and then going home. You have to come, then stay to the bitter end if you want to be sure of the outcome.

Don't people also advocate for candidates at caucuses before the vote takes place?

I'm from a primary-holding state, so I'm sort of vague on all the odd bits about how to caucus.

primary is just a straight ballot vote; most GOP primaries are winner-take-all but that may have changed in a few places.

caucuses are more like a big meeting. people physically get together in a big room (a high school gym generally) and, at the appointed time, bunch together with the other supporters of their first choice.

if there aren't enough people in a bunch, at that time, to meet the lower threshold %, then all those people have to choose someone else, and after another half-hour or so resort themselves for another count (or go home i guess). and that's where the unpollable combo of secondary & tertiary preferences combined with local relationships and just lucky charisma or whatev comes into play.

i dunno what those lower % thresholds are btw. 5? 15? in small communities or if there is low turnout, there's plenty of room to game this shit because the margins are so wacky. it's also why organization matters, a network of folks to just be at these places and hopefully yak their way thru the night. and also why long-duration enthusiasms like ron paul's core of fanatics can have a big effect over flash-in-the-pan polling leads like newt gingrich's.

idk how many rounds they go through either. probably when there are no more candidacies left below the margin. we could probably go to wikipedia or sth right?

Surely sometimes the second or third choice for a voter whose first choice becomes unavailable is: fuck this, I'm leaving.

This was taken at last year's Democratic caucus in Nevada. Look's quite bizarre.

http://www.american-buddha.com/aeyes29d.jpg

Yeah the caucus really seems to favor pauls campaign

is the pledge legally binding & enforcable, bc i think the best way to treat such a thing would be writing SURE DO! XOXO on the dotted line & then vote for the assholest as planned

lol my mom is a longtime democrat with no real 'extreme' or unorthodox or even notably leftist beliefs, but has a bizarre taste for single-digit outlier candidates.

i asked her in 08 if she was gonna caucus and she said she really liked joe biden (i know, right?) (i was fishing for her take on hrc vs obama vs born in a meal). so i was like, uh ok, who's your second choice then? "bill richardson".

then i recalled back in 88 when she had talked a whole crew of old people from the home she managed to go caucus for... bruce babbitt.

no real point to this story other than: caucuses are kind of fucked up and nobody ever explains wtf happens at them until like the night of.

Given what the pledge 'requires', it could not be legally binding. It is just a load of hokum.

"I promise to vote for the Republican nominee for President of the United States whether or not, in the intervening time between the primary and the national election, it is determined that he is a 'Manchurian' salafist candidate, a socialist, the author of the 'texts from Bennet' or a 34 year old Guatemalan drug runner."

ha rand paul: "it must be frustrating for Newt, to see something he feels he's entitled to slipping away"

"I do hope he enjoyed that cruise to the Greek isles."

(xpost) Ditto those of us who were hoping for a train-wreck of a Republican nomination process. We feel it slipping away, and it's very frustrating.

What could be more of a train-wreck than the inevitable Bob Dole-ization of the 2012 Republican candidate?

Newt-ization would have been preferable.

Bob Dole still thinks Bob Dole had a lot to offer the American people. Bob Dole resents the implication he was a stiff.

Bob Dole was actually funny at times. He's still a loser.

I remember getting really drunk one night not long after the '96 election and referring to myself as Bob Dole for a good part of the evening. ("Bob Dole can't keep his head up.") Just looked at his Wikipedia page--he turned 88 this year. I actually used to find him very funny.

Btw, via a perusal of the longest booms (as opposed to rece/depre-ssions in American history; the longest under one President? Clinton.

The only way I can imagine Twitter being even vaguely interesting would be if in every tweet, you had to refer to yourself as Bob Dole.

The upcoming Iowa caucuses make Bob Dole fresh and interesting again.

lol my mom is a longtime democrat with no real 'extreme' or unorthodox or even notably leftist beliefs, but has a bizarre taste for single-digit outlier candidates.

i asked her in 08 if she was gonna caucus and she said she really liked joe biden (i know, right?) (i was fishing for her take on hrc vs obama vs born in a meal). so i was like, uh ok, who's your second choice then? "bill richardson".

then i recalled back in 88 when she had talked a whole crew of old people from the home she managed to go caucus for... bruce babbitt.

All Catholic blue-blazer-wearers. I think I actually flirted with Babbitt too for '88 (the preteen-neb primary was a big deal that year); Gore was too conservative and hadn't yet showed his enviro side. Paul Simon became my favorite after Hart dropped out.

Nice bow ties

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/12/kelly-clarkson-endorses-ron-paul-on-twitter.html

Kelly Clarkson may be a country star in denial, but last night on Twitter, she proudly declared herself to be a Republican backing the man who may triumph next month in the Iowa caucuses. "I love Ron Paul," she wrote. "I liked him a lot during the last republican nomination and no one gave him a chance. If he wins the nomination for the Republican party in 2012 he's got my vote." Though her endorsement prompted fellow chanteuse Michelle Branch to also out herself as a Paul fan, Clarkson's followers quickly brought up the controversy surrounding Paul's recently unearthed newsletter statements, and the singer clarified, "I have never heard that he's a racist? I definitely don't agree with racism, that's ignorant ... I love all people and could care less if you like men or women. I have never heard that Ron Paul is a racist or homophobe?" Ultimately, wrote Clarkson, "I do not support racism. I support gay rights, straight rights, women's rights, men's rights, white/black/purple/orange rights. I like Ron Paul because he believes in less government and letting the people (all of us) make the decisions and mold our country. That is all." Justin Guarini, care to weigh in?

Orange ppl can fuck right off