The dontomasso is slippin'.

I believe it was only recently you posted that Obama would easily win re-election.

Rumor has it that Ms. Palin invented a fake Facebook account in order to praise herself and daughter Bristol. Palin has denied any link to the "Lou Sarah" persona, although Lou's Facebook page was linked to Palin's gmail account. Since the story broke, Lou Sarah's Facebook page has disappeared.

http://wonkette.com/438825/is-sarah-palin-commenting-on-her-own-facebook-fan-page

To be fair, re-election is a re-election regardless of size. It's all about what you do with it.

So true.

In other words, size doesn't matter. It's all about what you do with it.

Madonne! Not only do I find myself more and more agreeing with Apple, she's actually starting to excite me.

You old people creep me out.

Thune is a pimp. He could have never out fought Obama, but until this day I didn't know it was Huckabee all along.

Anyone care to explain to me why Huckabee (randomly) called out recent Oscar-winner Natalie Portman?

Or...or...to use my political cynicism, was this a subtle disguised swipe at the daughter of a former Governor, fellow Fox News talk show host, and possible '12 candidate?

I believe it was basically for being pregnant out of wedlock, and thanking her boyfriend in her Oscar acceptance speech for giving her 'the greatest gift', their unborn child.

He claims it sends the wrong message to less financially well off single mothers, who will mistakenly think it's so easy because movie stars do it.

The whole thing was set up by a question from conservative talk show host Michael Medved. But...it was a bit ridiculous to single out Ms. Portman, and if the intent was to play to his base it'll get him about as far as he got in 2008 (I think he was one of the first to drop out).

Actually, Huckabee has no chance in 2012 to begin with so what the heck he may as well say whatever he wants.

I think the GOP will repeat a mistake Goldwater made in '64 and McGovern repeated in '72. Both won the nomination via well-run campaigns from the extreme wings of their respective parties. They then campaigned by preaching to their respective choirs instead of reaching out to the Great Middle, where presidential elections are won. McCain made that mistake, in his own way: although the GOP right wing didn't put him over for nomination, he spent far too much time in the campaign trying to assure the right that he was one of them, instead of moving to the middle. Did he think for a minute that the GOP right would have voted for Obama?

The Tea Partyers have made impressive gains in Congress and are quite influential. But they're all very new, and are, as yet, leaderless (recall that even Palin campaigned for McCain last year against a Tea Party primary rival). The likely GOP nominee will be a "mainstream" Republican--a tax/spend/deficit politico only rhetorically different from the average Dem. But he'll have to spend all of his time trying to placate the Tea Partyers instead of reaching out to the middle. Even worse: the Tea Partyers, holding their ideological purity sacred, nominate their own candidate, splitting the GOP vote and absolutely assuring a Dem victory.

I believe Portman and beau are engaged, to be fair. Incidentally, Bristol Palin and ole Levi were also "engaged" when that baby came out until they split up. Bristol did DANCING WITH THE STARS and Levi did PlayGirl, and we all moved on to newer, dumber stories. Thank you Charles Sheen.



I got the impression he might not even run when he criticized the war in Afghanistan.



Something that frank and quite frankly honest is not said by a prospective, major candidate for a presidential nomination. Unless you're a fringer like Ron Paul who has fat chance.

~What do George McGovern, George McClellan, and Wendell Wilkie have in common? Anti-war nominees don't win the Presidency.

No but they could have just stayed home and not voted. Without that base turnout, how can a GOP candidate win an election? Its why McCain picked Palin for running mate. Whether our criticism about Sarah of Alaska, she got that base excited and actually care (for a time) about the election.

Of course McCain's people (allegedly) pulled a Thomas Eagleton and didn't run a background check on Palin and well all those skeletons fell out of the closet. Then her gaffes and we know what happened. Hell her announcement effectively killed Obama's post-convention poll bounce, right after he gave what pundits called a A+ convention speech.

The straw-breaker was when (allegedly) Palin called her party allies/donors back home in Alaska and told them not to give anymore to the McCain campaign and instead save the cash for Palin '12. The fact that before the election, John McCain himself did a SNL sketch w/ Tina Fey parodying that very story, makes me wonder.



Problem with the Tea Party is they're too big to be ignored, too small to take control of the RNC and make policies and thus we have a sustained partisan war between them and the party establishment figures. In fact quite frankly, what else unites them other than against Mr. Obama?

The other day on Fox News, Anne Coulter made this prediction about next year:



Is she right?

She's right about the GOP losing.

Even Rupert wants to know:



Source: Washington Post

Question: Why won't FNC do the same for Huckabee and Palin?

~Or its simply that they're hosting TV shows while Newt/Rick are commentators. Big difference.

Yes, they are engaged. That Bristol Palin thing was yet another of SO MANY mistakes of the McCain campaign. I always felt Bristol & Levi had NO intention of getting married when she got pregnant but were advised to put on the 'engaged' facade when Sarah was picked for VP. As if it would get them even 5 more votes...!!!

Ann Coulter is probably right about Romney; in fact she has maintained that the GOP will lose if anybody OTHER than Chris Christie is the nominee.

Huckabee was playing to his base with the comments about Portman.
It was just like the Quayle-Bergen thing all those years ago. But people's views have evolved and Portman is younger/better looking than Bergen was at the time-not to mention that unlike the Quayle criticism this is actually a real live woman being attacked and not a fictional character. So it looked like Huckabee was churlishly going after Portman. So he had to back off somewhat. So it goes.

The funny thing is that Huckabee seemed to have a (apparently undeserved) reputation for reasonableness. But with the criticism of Portman and the dog whistle about the President's birthplace he's shown he's just like any other politician.

You say potatoe . . .

Wasn't going to mention that but since you brought it up....

I always thought Quayle's criticism of the Murphy Brown baby thing was justified...in part because it WAS complete fiction, written solely for entertainment. Here you had a wealthy, prominent, over-40 single career woman who suddenly found herself pregnant...and actually didn't know who the father was!! It wasn't even as though real life pregnancy needed to be written into the show...the whole thing was simply made up.

What Quayle was saying was that it was sending the wrong message and he had a point...unfortunately it all came about during an election year and was very skillfully used against him by the show. Murphy's son was born in the 1992 season finale, Quayle promptly delivered his criticism and they absolutely TROUNCED him in the September season premiere...exactly 2 months before the election.

Not saying that Bush would've won re-election over Clinton had it not been for that...but it certainly didn't help and it REALLY irrepably damaged Dan Quayle, who up to then was already getting very little respect.

What is the per centage of children born out of wedlock these days? I think it is something astonishing.

Overall it is about 40% and rising DT. It's even higher for some sub-sections of the US population. People can argue about all the reasons for that of course (married people having fewer children, welfare, birth control, blah, blah, blah) but that's the overall number.

Qualye was not media savvy imo and misjudged the cultural capital that was invested in saying that decisions like that of the fictional Murphy Brown or some very real mothers were a-ok. I think that ideally children should have both parents but it seems that there are enough people who disagree with that that it is now on the verge of becoming a minority view.

The other thing which Qualye got reamed on was that it's difficult at best to draw any correlation between the actions of a fictional character and the decisions that many women and girls make IRL. As you mention this was seized upon with vigor by his political enemies despite the fact that they themselves likely had art or literature which they thought sent the wrong message.

But anyway as far as oow births go I don't really see a way to put the genie back in the bottle -short of reversing 40-50 years of feminism,the social safety net, the media culture, our understandings of individual autonomy and so on. While there are a few people who would like to do just that I don't think they have that kind of muscle anymore. For better or worse times change.

I do think if Portman were older and uglier perhaps Huckabee could have gotten away with it. But attacking a beautiful young woman that just won an Oscar and is thanking her fiancee just seems really really petty.

He wasn't the only one on that ticket to make a mistake by picking on pop culture. President Bush betrayed the generation gap when he attacked a then-edgy, very popular cartoon sitcom on the rise when he uttered: "We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family, to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons"

The next week on SIMPSONS, the creators quickly included a new opening with Bart Simpson watching Bush's remark and replying: "Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the Depression too."
Poppycock made a mistake that politicians today learned with Jon Stewart: Don't. Pick. A. Rhetorical. Fight. With. Comedians. You. Will. Lose.



As you put it earlier, Christie has said he won't run. In fact unless I'm mistaken, he had said somewhere that he wasn't "ready" for the job yet or something to that effect.

I know alot of GOPers are talking him up, a few polls claim he's hotter than lava, maybe more than one whisper to his ear about him being the Republican Obama, all which surely would stroke anybody's ego. But here is my advice to the guy if he is truely tempted: Don't run. DON'T DO IT!

I fear his conservative fanbase confuse his record for his rhetoric, for he's got the same problem Mitt Romney had in '08 and will have in '12: As Republican Governors of Democratic New England states, they've had to run and execute on issue positions that might be found unacceptable by the national party base, and made compromises that'll be scrutinized and picked apart more than a salad bar. I can see that primary campaign ad: "Chris Christie: Soft on Immigration, Soft on Family Values, Soft on Abortion, Too Soft for America."

I'm reminded of Charlie Crist, who went from popular Florida governor that seemed not just a shoe-in for the Senate in '10, but a possible national candidate in '16. But then he supported the Stimulus (got Florida billions of federal funds) and that dream burned down in a spectacular public fashion that could've made the Hindenburg jealous.

Or for that matter back in '08, conservatives talked up Fred Thompson as their savior to rescue them from a lackluster primary field. So he ran, had to quit LAW & ORDER, and...his campaign stalled DOA it seemed as soon as he threw his hat into the ring.

Let's say Obama is re-elected. 2016 could end up being an open election like '08 since I wonder if VP Biden and Hillary might be just too damn old to run by then. Not a guarantee of course since ego and ambition transcends age. '12 will have any potential GOP nominee challenge an incumbent President, and historically we know that's pretty damn hard to do. Of course not impossible, but it aint easy. Learn from Obama, but not the wrong lessons.

I'm reminded of that anecdote about 1968. Then first-term California Governor Ronald Reagan was a darling of the right wing and was even a contender for the GOP presidential nomination at the convention. He lost to Nixon, and Reagan told one of his advisors that he privately was glad he lost since he felt he wasn't ready yet to make that leap from state to national politics. Sometimes it does pay to wait and bide for time.

~For that matter, would Chris even win New Jersey? Its a Democratic state, and slimeball hack Corzine only lost to Christie by only four points. The last elected-President to lose his home state was Bush Sr. Before that? Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

To be completely honest, I agree w/ you 100%. If he really doesn't feel he's ready then Christie should NOT run in 2012 regardless of any ego-stroking or prediction that he's the only one who could beat Obama (which I don't think is necessarily true, despite what Ann Coulter thinks).

To put too much expectation on ONE guy is unfair and unrealistic in BOTH parties. I think it's a far better idea to wait & see who has announced and who is running a year from now and let the whole group battle it out. Obama was one of 7 or 8 when debates started in 2007 and nobody on that stage thought he had a chance in hell of even being the nominee (especially one H. Clinton ).

Depending on many things, the economy included, the 2012 race could end up just as interesting...that is if the GOP doesn't fall back into their tried & true trap of nominating stately older men with nothing to offer except 40 years of service to their country and half-witted attempts to appear morally above it all. It just doesn't seem to win elections any more.

Remember how popular Rudy Giuliani was in January of 2002? I doubt he would get elected to any office now.

I was hoping he would have run for NY Governor rather than the White House. He could have easily beaten Spitzer at the time, and NY could well be in a different position right now. Coulda, woulda, shoulda....

I am probably outnumbered here, but I think Christie WILL end up running in spite of what he is saying (btw, there must be a deadline to put your hat in the ring no?). Let's face it, the Republicans have "slim pickins'" when it comes to candidates.

Most people outside of NJ have only just heard of Christie. My guess would be, if he runs, he'll be very popular with his crowd at first and then as politics go, people will get to know him and THEN will decide from there.

I think of Florida's Alan Grayson on the Dem side. Everyone loved his tell it like it is sarcastic attitude, BUT in the end I think people don't like bossy, know-it-alls and, although still liked, he died down in popularity and I think that's why.

TIS

I agree, Babe. You know I loathed Spitzer, even prior to the hookers. And Prince Cuomo will turn out to be an even bigger whiner than his father was. I've already had it up to here (my hand is under my chin) looking at photo ops of him and his pasty-faced, pseudo-gourmet, dishrag of a girlfriend. This was a rare case where I would have voted for a true conservative, had there been one available (like Rudy).

Giuliani could have used that governor's seat to launch himself into the 2012 race, and it would have been a far more successful strategy. However, many say he is too moderate for the ticket, with way too many skeletons in his closet, like the mysterious cousin/first wife, the pedophile priest best friend, and his relationship with Kerik.

Come on PB, you just need to try her apple cider/cottage cheese/tomato soup lasagna.

Don't think that's not part of it!

Truth is, his father was a first generation Italian-American, with an Italian Mama in a black dress, and I still couldn't stand him.

Appropriate to this site: His denying that the Mafia existed as late as the mid '80s (during the very public Gotti era!) was unforgivable. No one hates Italian stereotypes like I do, but I'd never turn a blind eye or play Pollyanna like that. He was a f'n bum.

And his son, Prince Andrew, will turn out to be even worse (in part because he'll have to live on canned soup ).

That is HILARIOUS!!!

They don't call that show 'Semi-Homemade' for nothing!!