VIDEO, Mike Papantonio and Ed Schultz : 10,000 Reasons Why Mitt's Campaign is Finished - Stupid Wager - Mitt is so finished that he recruits Ann Coulter, he is desperate - It's over for Mitt Romney

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Mitt Romney is hiring the strategist that pushed Marco Rubio to the U. S. Senate with a lot of lies and Horatio Alger Stories about the poor Cuban parents that reached the USA with a nickel in their pockets after fighting for Freedom in Cuba against Castro, all lies and foolishness because they came to America many years before Castro took over in Cuba.

Uploaded by golefttv on Dec 12, 2011

Mike Papantonio and Ed Schultz discuss the latest Republican presidential debate -- a debate that could spell the end of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.

Papantonio: 10,000 Reasons Why Mitt's Campaign is Finished

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POLITICO.COM : PPP Polls in Virginia : VA looks to be Obama's firewall state as he prepares to run for reelection. Obama beats Mitt Romney by 6% and Newt Gingrich by 7%, which is comparable to his 2008 win over John McCain

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A victory for Obama in Virginia will make the GOP's path to 270 very, very difficult,” says PPP’s polling :

POLITICO.COM
Virginia is for Obama (by 1%)
By GLENN THRUSH
December 14, 2011

Virginia is for Obama (by 1%)


Some excerpts :

Democratic pollster PPP is providing the day’s Twitter fodder for Team Obama, and for good reason: Obama seems to be holding up surprisingly well in Virginia, thanks to rock-solid backing from African-Americans and northern Virginia liberals.

He’s actually above water, albeit in a statistically insignificant way, with a 48-to-47 approval/disapproval split, beats Mitt by six and Newt by seven, which is comparable to his 2008 win over John McCain.

The big news here isn’t necessarily Obama’s popularity, it’s the odor in which the Republican presidential field is held.

Both GOP frontrunners are only in the low-30s approval wise, with Romney 33/52 and Gingrich 31/55.

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The Implosion of the Republican Party : A Great Hate and Contempt for President Obama is leading the Republicans to the brink of disaster in 2012 - The Republican Electorate is becoming mad with the desire to replay 1964 and repeal the Great Society and the New Deal

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Like the Norwegian Rodent Lemmings, Republicans are hypercharged with aggression and fury. The small arctic lemmings attack humans when they are in overpopulation mode.

It is not the Republican Establishment, Elected Officials and GOP operatives that want to jump off a cliff into the sea like the proverbial rodents.

The Rodent Lemmings can swim and may choose to cross a body of water in search of a new habitat. In such cases, many may drown if the body of water is so wide and cold as to stretch their physical capability to the limit. Because of their association with this odd behavior, lemming suicide is a frequently used metaphor in reference to people who go along unquestioningly with popular opinion, with potentially dangerous or fatal consequences.

I am beginning to think that Republicans would hate President Obama even if he was white, blond and blue eyed.

After reading an article by Ed Kilgore, one of my favorite authors in "The New Republic", I felt more sure and persuaded that Republicans are going to a great defeat in year 2012. Here it is :

The New Republic
The GOP Establishment Hates Newt. He’s Going to Win Anyway.
By Ed Kilgore
December 13, 2011


The GOP Establishment Hates Newt. He’s Going to Win Anyway.

Some excerpts :

As the 2012 invisible primary lurches to a close, the Republican Party looks more likely than ever to be in the process of presenting its caucus and primary voters with the choice between one candidate they don’t want to nominate and another their fellow-Americans don’t want to elect. Mitt Romney simply hasn’t grown on primary voters; if anything, in recent weeks, he’s soured. And Newt Gingrich, for his part, would enter the general election as the weakest GOP nominee since Barry Goldwater. But owing to the present weakness of the GOP establishment, the bullishness of the base, and the fact that someone must win, my money is currently on Gingrich pulling off a repeat of 1964.

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But even more importantly, Romney’s shocking weakness against Gingrich suggests that his supposed trump card, “electability,” doesn’t really matter all that much to Republican voters. Given present trends, that’s not as surprising as it might seem. Ever-increasing majorities of likely Republican primary voters are expressing the opinion that they’d prefer a nominee who reflects their values and views to one with a better chance of winning next November. And even among the minority who say they care most about electability, it should by no means be assumed that that concern translates into support for Romney, given the recent ascendancy of the conservative dogma that run-to-the-center moderates are guaranteed losers and the parallel belief—born of the party’s exceptional contempt for Barack Obama—that any true conservative is destined to win in 2012. To put it bluntly, the conservative activists who dominate the Republican presidential nominating contest are split between those who simply don’t believe adverse polls about Gingrich, and those who would rather control the GOP than the White House, if forced to choose.

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But those pundits willing to entertain “anything’s possible” scenarios to thwart a Gingrich nomination might want to be more open to the possibility of the establishment simply losing, which is not unprecedented. Indeed, it happened in 1964, when the power of the rank-and-file to elect delegates in primaries was extremely limited, and very nearly happened again in 1976, when Ronald Reagan came within an eyelash of denying renomination to a sitting president. In both cases, a very large number of Republican voters showed themselves to be more interested in defeating the Republican establishment than in defeating Democrats.

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What looks to some like a winnable-or-losable general election looks to ideologues like the best chance in decades to replay 1964 and repeal the Great Society and the New Deal. In this context, it’s no surprise that the old revolutionary Gingrich looks like a better prospect than Romney to take on that challenge—and if it fails, well, it’s just a small step backwards on the conservative movement’s long march to ultimate victory.

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HuffPost : Chris Kelly, Writer, 'Real Time with Bill Maher' : A lot of people are raising a stink about Mitt Romney making $10,000 schoolyard bets while running for president in a nation where the child poverty rate is 19.8%

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Mitt Romney makes a stupid Wager of 10,000 in the middle of a Republican Candidates Debate. He is showing off about his riches and fortune. The man is arrogant, a braggart and boaster about his fortune.

Huffington Post
Mitt Romney's Honor Is Worth $10,000 and Not a Penny More
By Chris Kelly
Writer, 'Real Time with Bill Maher'
December 11, 2011

Mitt Romney's Honor Is Worth $10,000 and Not a Penny More


Some excerpts :

They're scoring cheap points by pretending that Mitt Romney doesn't understand the value of a dollar -- like he throws wads of it around just to bully people about nothing.

And they're inciting all kinds of unpleasant class warfare by pointing out that $10,000 is a pathetically small amount of money to Mitt Romney.

But they're missing the point.

It's about honor.

Let's say Rick Perry is lying about Mitt Romney and insulting his character (by hinting that one edition of a book Romney wrote says health insurance is good). If you were a normal man, and another man kept brazenly and systematically lying about you and insulting your character, and you asked him to stop, and he didn't -- you'd probably threaten to punch him in the nose.

I mean, if something really important was at stake. Like leading the free world.

But Mitt's not a man of violence. That's why he sat out Vietnam in France. All Mitt Romney cares about is money. So when you've pushed Mitt Romney so far that he's actually willing to risk money on a bet? That's like running over Mad Max's family, to you and me.

If all you ever thought about in your life was money, and how to get more, telling someone to eat their words or give you some is like Rock Hudson fighting the racist at the end of Giant.

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The Supreme Court justices won’t be weighing the merits of SB 1070, but rather the merits of the lower federal court judge’s decision to block parts of it from being enforced pending a constitutional challenge from the Obama administration

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This is not the Supreme Court judging Arizona, Latinos, Immigration, Russell Pearce, Jan Brewer or the GOP. This is passing judgements on previous decisions by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

The Certiorari is the order from the Supreme Court to the Ninth Circuit asking for the pertinent papers, those that are relevant to SB 1070.

My own opinion : If the Supreme Court decides everything in favor of Arizona then Federal Preemption is toast and there will be a great chaos and anarchy of state laws on the Human and the Divine.

I thought that the American Civil War established the supremacy of the Federal Government.




Southern California Public Radio
What the Supreme Court’s review of the SB 1070 case means
By Leslie Berestein Rojas
December 12, 2011


What the Supreme Court’s review of the SB 1070 case means


Some excerpts :

The federal lawsuit, filed in early July of last year as SB 1070 was set to take effect, asserts that immigration law is the domain of the federal government and that it pre-empts attempts by states to set their own immigration rules.

While the SB 1070 appeal won’t likely be heard in the high court until spring, how the justices rule could either encourage or put a halt to the flurry of state anti-illegal immigration laws that followed in its wake. In the last year, states that include Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Utah and Indiana have enacted their own versions of SB 1070.

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POLITICO.COM : Newt Gingrich wins Republican Debate, Newt tempers some of his worst impulses. Mitt Romney appears more flustered, upset and confused than Gingrich. - Romney offers stupid wager of $10,000 bragging about being very rich and powerful !

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POLITICO.COM
At Republican debate, Newt Gingrich rolls on with steady performance
By JONATHAN MARTIN
December 11, 2011

At Republican debate, Newt Gingrich rolls on with steady performance


Some excerpts :

In a campaign that has been chiefly shaped by debates, Newt Gingrich demonstrated Saturday night why he tops the polls — and why he won’t easily be dethroned.

Facing tough questions from his Republican rivals and debate moderators in Des Moines, Gingrich parried blow after blow without losing his cool or showing the much-discussed undisciplined side of his personality.

It was the former House speaker’s first debate as the undisputed frontrunner and not only did he stand up to the fresh scrutiny, he reminded Republican primary voters of his command of the issues, his intellectual dexterity and his self-assured, forceful arguments.

When Mitt Romney scolded Gingrich for his provocative claim that Palestinians are an “invented” people, the former Georgia congressman concisely captured why his brand of bombast is playing so well with a roiling GOP electorate.

“I think sometimes it is helpful to have a president of the United States with the courage to tell the truth, just as was Ronald Reagan who went around his entire national security apparatus to call the Soviet Union an ‘evil empire’ and who overruled his entire State Department in order to say, ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,’’ said Gingrich, calling himself a “Reaganite” and then adding a memorable kicker: “ I will tell the truth, even if it’s at the risk of causing some confusion sometimes with the timid.”

Romney suggested Gingrich is a “bomb-thrower,” but the applause Gingrich received in the Des Moines debate hall after his answer illustrated that Republican primary voters prefer pugnacity to sobriety at this moment.

What makes Gingrich so formidable in these debates, and in the larger nominating contest, is that he’s not only appealing to the Republican heart, but to its head. The former history professor offers the sort of articulate answers matched on stage only by Romney, while using language that channels the give-em-hell vibe of GOP voters girding for a confrontation with President Obama.

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Teddy Roosevelt had been invited to Osawatomie Kansas in 1910 to preside over the dedication of the John Brown Memorial Park, near the site where the radical abolitionist and a small band of his followers had skirmished with a much larger pro-slavery force in 1856

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The Relation to Obama's visit to Osawatomie Kansas :

History of a Great American Abolitionist ( called "terrorist" ) and the connection to Teddy 1910 and Obama December 7, 2011 and his speech in Osawatomie Kansas.

The wife and daughters of Barack Obama descend from Black Slaves. This should have been emotional for the President.

The New Republic
How Pundits are Misreading Obama’s Speech—and Teddy Roosevelt’s
December 7, 2011

By Ben Soskis

Benjamin Soskis is a Fellow at the Center for Nonprofit Management, Philanthropy and Policy at George Mason University. He is writing, with John Stauffer, a history of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

How Pundits are Misreading Obama’s Speech—and Teddy Roosevelt’s

Some excerpts :

Roosevelt had been invited to Osawatomie to preside over the dedication of the John Brown Memorial Park, near the site where the radical abolitionist and a small band of his followers had skirmished with a much larger pro-slavery force in 1856. Roosevelt, who had been mulling re-entering the political arena after leaving the White House in 1908, agreed. The association with Brown, who had led the 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry that helped to spark the Civil War, would allow Roosevelt to align himself publicly with the insurgents within the GOP and to rebuke the conservative Old Guard establishment.

Much of the contemporary reaction to his “New Nationalism” speech regarded it as channeling the uncompromising spirit of old John Brown. “It is impossible to conceive of a more radical speech, in relation to the interests of wealth, being delivered in this country at the present time by any one outside of the socialist party,” announced the Springfield Republican. Other papers labeled it “communistic” and “anarchistic.”

But Roosevelt did not mean for his speech—the writing of which he largely delegated to an ally, Gifford Pinchot, who held even more extreme views on governmental authority—to be a statement of radical beliefs. He had initially hoped that by championing progressive principles, he could take control of the potentially irresponsible insurgent forces within the GOP and orchestrate a reconciliation with the party’s more conservative wing. In fact, in the address itself, he did not merely define himself as a crusader against special interests; he also signaled his resistance to the excesses of radicalism as well.

His delicate political positioning became clear to those who assembled at the dedication of the John Brown memorial, including a few elderly veterans of the fighting at Osawatomie, expecting to hear something of the abolitionist martyr. In fact, Roosevelt made only a passing reference to Brown in his speech. To many, the omission seemed like a rebuke. As one Kansas editor recalled the event a few years later, with only a slight exaggeration (Roosevelt did invoke Brown twice), the former president “dedicated a monument to John Brown without mentioning…Brown’s name.”

The neglect of Brown was intentional. In the weeks leading up to the speech, Roosevelt’s advisers, specifically Kansas editor William Allen White, had been warning the former president against forging too close an association with Brown, for fear of taking on his radical taint. As White wrote Roosevelt, he considered Brown “a bloody butcher and a fanatic,” and he used his ambivalence toward Brown to make a larger point about the ineffectiveness of extremism in the cause of reform. Roosevelt responded that he largely agreed with White’s estimation of Brown—and extremists more generally. “At the moment I am endeavoring to prevent the John Browns among the insurgents getting themselves into a position from which the Abraham Lincolns cannot extricate themselves,” he explained.

A few days later, Roosevelt published another version of the speech, more conciliatory toward the forces of concentrated wealth, that he wrote himself and that made public his own ambiguous attitude toward the hero of Osawatomie. “John Brown stands to us now as representing the men and the generation who rendered the greatest service ever rendered this country,” Roosevelt wrote in Outlook. “He stood for heroic valor, grim energy, fierce fidelity to high ideals.” Progressives would need to apply those same qualities to the problems of the twentieth century, he insisted.

But Brown, argued Roosevelt, should serve as much as a warning as a model. He represented the dangers inherent in acts of “heedless violence” that would only “invite reaction.” It was the socialists rather than the Progressives who were Brown’s modern day successors; Brown’s “notion that the evils of slavery could be cured by a slave insurrection was a delusion analogous to the delusions of those who expect to cure the evils of plutocracy by arousing the baser passions of workingmen against the rich in an endeavor at violent industrial revolution.” Progressives should not shun the John Browns of the current moment, and could profitably cooperate with them, but should reject the “vindictiveness” that poisoned their works. Instead, they must make sure that it was the spirit of Abraham Lincoln—marked by “patience and moderation in the policy pursued, and … kindly charity and consideration and friendliness to those of opposite belief”—that inspired their efforts.

And so in the statements inspired by his trip to Osawatomie, Roosevelt did not merely announce his commitment to a bold program of progressive activism. He also proclaimed that he would both marshal—and contain—the fervor of his allies in reform. He would protect them from the temptations of both the right and the left. In fact, in his speech, he celebrated the fact that he was denounced—sometimes by the same paper—as both a tool of Wall Street and as a socialist fanatic. That he was the target of the attacks of both reactionaries and radicals was proof, for Roosevelt, of his integrity, of his transcendence of special interests and his devotion to the common good.

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Pollster Mark Blumenthal : The Republican Invisible Primary : "Power Outsiders Poll: Local Republicans Support Gingrich On Immigration" - Bad News for Mitt Romney - Analysis of Polls, Data, Conversations with Important GOP Officials and Operatives

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Some Important Republican Operatives say they don't want Demagoguery on Immigration :

The Huffington Post surveys a swath of influential, local Republican activists, party leaders and elected officials in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. Interviews were conducted between Dec. 2 and Dec. 7, 2011.

Very Important Excerpt of this Article :

"Some may also feel slightly personal greater agreement with the harder Romney line, but as practical politicians also understand that "this Hispanic vote is very important," as one New Hampshire respondent put it on a final open-ended question. Or they simply see immigration as a big challenge. When offered the opportunity to explain their answers, a number of the Power Outsiders describe immigration variously as a "challenging topic," an "extremely difficult issue [that] will require great leadership" or an issue "too serious an issue to demagogue"."

Huffington Post
Power Outsiders Poll: Local Republicans Support Gingrich On Immigration
By Mark Blumenthal
December 7, 2011

Power Outsiders Poll: Local Republicans Support Gingrich On Immigration


Some excerpts :

The latest Power Outsider survey conducted by The Huffington Post and Patch suggests that, if anything, influential local Republicans in the early caucus and primary states are rallying to Gingrich's side of the immigration argument. A majority of the local insiders said Gingrich would do a better job than Romney on immigration, and just as many choose Gingrich's position on immigration over Romney's when presented the ideas without their names attached.

The Power Outsiders poll is an ongoing effort to reach out to local Republican activists, party officials and officeholders in the early primary and caucus states to observe the critical "invisible primary," usually a strong leading indicator of voters' preferences in presidential nomination contests. This week we interviewed 183 Power Outsiders: 50 in Iowa, 61 in New Hampshire, 61 in South Carolina and 12 in Florida.

When asked to choose the candidate that would do the best job handling illegal immigration, Gingrich holds a narrow lead over the rest of the field, just as he did when we asked the same question four weeks ago. Twenty-four percent of respondents said they supported Gingrich, with 16 percent and 15 percent supporting Romney and Rick Perry, respectively. Ron Paul garnered 11 percent of the vote, and Michele Bachmann had the support of 10 percent, while the other candidates polled in single digits.

When HuffPost asked respondents to choose between Gingrich and Romney on immigration, however, the former speaker holds a much bigger lead (52 to 27 percent). That advantage is even larger among our Power Outsiders in Iowa (60 to 28 percent) and South Carolina (61 to 16 percent). Though Romney has more support in New Hampshire, the state's Power Outsiders divide almost evenly (38 percent Romney and 36 percent Gingrich).

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POLITICO.COM Forum : Mitt Romney's anti-Newt Ad : "Sadly for Mitt, although Evangelicals aren't fond of Catholics, they prefer them over Mormons. And although the Christian right claims to be about family values and marriage for life, they're also about forgiveness and redemption

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... and Newt's 'fallen man' mea culpa speeches have seemingly been very effective with them; or at least with the former Cain supporters"

POLITICO.COM
"The Arena" Forum
December 9, 2011

Mitt Romney Attacks Newt Gingrich on Three Wives and Conversion to Catholicism


Some excerpts :

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Leslie Marshall Radio Talk Show Host :

When I first saw Mitt Romney's ad attacking Newt Gingrich's three marriages and conversion to Catholicism, I thought it was a bit for Saturday Night Live.

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So many in the Republican Party want anyone but Romney as much as they want anyone but Obama. Perhaps Mr Romney should put his advertising dollars to better use and explain how he created a mandate with health care in Massachusetts and is against the exact same mandate on a federal level and just how someone was pro choice and now is pro life; now that's an ad I'd like to see; although I'm sure SNL would have quite the remake!

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David Mark Moderator :

In a new Iowa television ad Mitt Romney says from a debate podium, "I've been married to the same woman for 25 - excuse me, I'll get in trouble - for 42 years. I've been in the same church my entire life." The former Massachusetts governor also recounts his long tenure leading Bain Capital and experience running the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Is this a less-than-subtle jab at GOP presidential rival Newt Gingrich over his three marriages and his conversion to Roman Catholicism? Is this an effective tactic or sign of desperation?

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Craig Shirley Reagan biographer and president, Shirley and Banister Public Affairs :

In the Federalist Papers, Jay, Hamilton and Madison hammered over and over that the two principle qualifications for the presidency were experience and character.

Experience is objectively determined. Character should also be objectively determined. Attacking a man for converting to Catholicism or attacking a man’s wife in a political campaign tell much about the character of both the attacker and the subject of the attack.

Some would even say that attacking another man’s faith or wife are indications that the sponsor of the assault is of bad character and thus unqualified to be president of the United States. Others more bluntly would call the man doing the attacking despicable.

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Ex-Rep. Martin Frost Attorney, former Democratic congressman :

Romney has no choice but to go after Newt in any way possible.

The resistance to Romney among GOP faithful is so strong that he can only win by showing he is a fighter. Look for more attacks....Newt has lots of vulnerabilities but he probably can only be taken out by a candidate who has fire in the belly.

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Elayne Rapping Professor of American Studies, State University of New York at Buffalo :

Romney is too constrained for his own good. Of course it's a subtle jab, the problem is it's way too subtle to be effective since Republicans already know about Newt's personal foibles and apparently very few care.

If the roles were reversed Newt would have come out swinging, throwing much more explicitly nasty jabs in Romney's face and making them sound even nastier than they were. Newt is a pit bull and Romney a nervous little cocker spaniel who can't take even a softball hit and apparently can't throw one. That's one of many reasons his campaign is tanking while Newt's is taking off.

Republicans like a fighter this year, and they don't seem to care much what the fight is. Buckle your seat belt, President Obama, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

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Garry South Democratic consultant, The Garry South Group :

It's obviously a direct attack on Gingrich, but Romney isn't very likable even in positive mode.

Being in attack mode isn't likely to make him any more lovable. It's like that memorable line from the movie "Broadcast News": "Wouldn't this be a great world if desperation made us more attractive?" Also, Romney can't have it both ways with his Mormonism - alluding to it in his own ads, but then suggesting that anyone who questions the unorthodox tenets of the church is out of bounds.

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Ex-St. Sen. Jeff Smith Former Missouri state senator (D); New School professor :

Mitt is like the perfectly-behaved boy with straight As who's taken the cheerleader on dates every weekend for a year and can't close the deal, and now the roguish drop-out has swooped in and gained traction despite the urgings of the cheerleader's parents (i.e., the Republican establishment) to beware.

How can she not realize what a huge mistake she's making?? This guy is a total dead-ender! I just got admitted to Harvard, and this guy's got no future....It's plain as day! How can she not see it?

Mitt has spent the last few weeks trying unsuccessfully to conspire with her parents and it's backfired - because the more a 17-year-old girl's parents like a guy, the less she will. Just like tea partiers and the Republican establishment.

With the president's approval ratings in the low 40s, these voters are feeling their oats. They want to take a walk on the wild side!

So now young Mitt, usually so cool and collected, is getting desperate. This ad is his most direct attempt yet to show the cheerleader the error of her ways. And I suspect that Republican voters, like the cheerleader, aren't going to listen to reason. They're going to have to learn this lesson for themselves.

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Eileen Smith Editor, In the Pink Texas :

How could this possibly hurt Gingrich?

Romney apparently has no idea how long he's been married and, while he's been in the same church his entire life, it's the Mormon church. Why remind evangelical voters that you're not as Christian as they are?

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Steven G. Calabresi Professor of law, Northwestern University :

Romney is desperate and is flailing at Gingrich. Seventy-five percent of all GOP primary voters are in solid agreement that they do not want Romney as their nominee.

You cannot change your mind constantly about core issues like socialized medicine, cap and trade, immigration, abortion, and gay rights and expect people to believe what you say. There is a lot more consistency in Newt Gingrich's life story than there is in Romney's and if Gingrich slips up maybe Rick Perry will stage a comeback or Jon Huntsman will surge. Mitt Romney does not deserve to be the Republican nominee given Romneycare and his shameless demagoguery on the immigration issue both in the current campaign and in 2008.

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Jason Huff Democratic consultant :

Mitt, my man...you are running in the wrong time in history.

You are the great prototypical Northeast Republican: handsome, rich, educated, steady. You would absolutely run away with the primary nomination...60 years ago (wiping the convention floor with Thomas Dewey!). But you have to be careful on the religious conversion angle. Mormonism is based on conversion. In every corner of America there are young people riding their bikes around town spreading the gospel of John Smith. Remember, Mitt: you were a missionary once...in Paris. (How do you get that gig?! I guess God really does love us all differently).

Mitt is hitting Newt with known quantities: everyone knows about his multiple marriages and shady deals. It's like calling water wet. Mitt is coming off like the kid who says, "I'm going to tell Mom what you did."

Well, governor, Mom knows. And she apparently doesn't care about his indiscretions or is so repelled by your gleaming life that she will choose Newt as her more favored child. Yes, he avoided Vietnam. Yes, he made tons of money lobbying. Yes, he writes the worst fiction this side of a Fox News script. And yes, you are the best, steady choice for a marriage. But the primary ain't a marriage: it's spring break, and Newt is the rouge setting up shots in Daytona, baby! Outside of saying you started Fight Club in the basement of Bain Capital you just are not going to be the choice of a Newt voter.

Since we are focused on religion, maybe Mitt should look to the East for spiritual guidance, maybe a bit of Zen. A peach can only be a peach, no matter how badly it wants to be an apple. Be who you are, not a facsimile of what you think others want. You cannot be Newt: you have to be Mitt. And being Mitt is a pretty good gig from the looks of your television spot. Hitting Newt Gingrich on his flaws has never worked. No matter how sour his character, he emerges to get what he wants. Hell, if Machiavelli had lived through the Contract with America, he would have retitled The Prince The Speaker.

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Christine Pelosi Attorney, author and Democratic activist :

Iowa caucusgoers are famous for upending frontrunners and humbling political titans.

Iowans rejected Mitt Romney in 2008 knowing full well how long he was married and attending church - and won't be shy about doing so again. Romney's got to speak from his heart to their hearts - not from from his head to their hearts. Thus an ad marking his longevity without mentioning his passion doesn't give people a reason to embrace him.

Romney's awkward courtship comes off like the investment banker whose 1,600 word missive for a second date is an instant viral classic in social oblivion: you can't make a case for passion - it's there or it isn't. After all these years people still don't know Mitt Romney's passion, and until he tells it from the heart he cannot expect to beat Newt Gingrich or President Barack Obama.

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Brad Bannon

Brad Bannon President, Bannon Communications Research :

This is the classic political example of opening a can of worms.

Mitt Romney was right because he will get into trouble for bringing religion in the race. Because many Christian conservatives don't consider Mormons real Christians, Romney put his beliefs up for debate. As a Catholic, I resent that implication that there's something wrong with Newt Gingrich because he became a Catholic. There's a lot wrong with Gingrich but his religious affiliation is not one of them.

Romney's charges against the former speaker are also an indication of the difficulty, the eventual GOP nominee will have next fall. While Republicans trade charges about religion, Americans are focused on the economic problems facing the nation. It’s Republicans not Democrats who are out of touch with the concerns of the public. The GOP will pay the price next year for its indifference to working Americans.

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David Biespiel American poet, director, Attic Institute :

This is exactly where Mitt Romney didn't want to be in 2012. As with 2008, he's fighting harder than he should have in both Iowa and New Hampshire - a difficult two-front battle. Should he lose or not meet expectations in Iowa and N.H., he has little prospects of success in South Carolina and dimming prospects in Florida soon after.

With a weak field and a surging Newt Gingrich playing the happy warrior, Romney is facing the biggest test of his candidacy. Unfortunately, it's a candidacy in which the candidate remains unliked by the voters.

Really, that's too bad because, while I would not support Mitt Romney (as regular Arena readers probably know already), I will say that he is a serious person who has worked hard to prepare himself for the presidency, should he be elected - which he won't because American will support Barack Obama in the fall.

Sadder still is Romney's penchant for negative campaigning, a penchant he has shown since his first run for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts in the 1990s when he attacked Sen. Edward Kennedy and the Kennedy family for being in public service to make money. "We have paid too high a price" in public service, Kennedy responded, ending Romney's candidacy. But Romney has never learned the lesson - voters want to vote for someone, not against someone.

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Andrew Fieldhouse, Federal Budget Policy Analyst, Economic Policy Institute : "I applaud president Obama for making the case for the progressive alternative against regressive tax cuts". - " As a nation, we cannot afford to double down on the failed, plutocratic pipe dream that is trickle down economics"

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"The president's speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, on Tuesday December 6, addressed the challenges of rebuilding the middle class and tempering income inequality, making the case that doubling down on the supply-side experiment of the last decade will fail the needs of the vast majority".

Huffington Post
Supply-side's Abject Failure
By Andrew Fieldhouse, Federal Budget Policy Analyst, Economic Policy Institute
December 8, 2011

Supply-side's Abject Failure


Some excerpts :

This supply-side snake oil is peddled on the premise that when the wealthy do well, income gains trickle down to the middle class and everyone benefits from a growing economy. But that hasn't happened -- real median income has sharply decoupled from productivity gains in recent decades (particularly since 2000) and income gains have been incredibly concentrated at the top of the earnings distribution. The president made the following salient point on the supply-side experiment:

"Now, it's a simple theory... And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker. But here's the problem: It doesn't work. It has never worked. It didn't work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It's not what led to the incredible post-war booms of the '50s and '60s. And it didn't work when we tried it during the last decade. I mean, understand, it's not as if we haven't tried this theory."

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Of course, the value that policymakers put on the happiness of the very rich is exactly what stands behind the failure to enact job creation measures that would be financed by a surtax on millionaires and the repeated collapse of long-term deficit reduction negotiations because of conservative intransigence over raising more revenue from upper-income households.

I applaud the president for making the case for the progressive alternative against regressive tax cuts as the lodestar of economic policy. America's low- and moderate income families should, too. As a nation, we cannot afford to double down on the failed, plutocratic pipe dream that is trickle down economics. Another round of tax cuts for the highest-income households will not restore full employment but will exacerbate widening income inequality, blow a bigger hole in the budget deficit, and defund needed public investments and economic security programs. Any policymaker genuinely concerned with the fate of the middle class, inequality and immobility, or the budget deficit, should be focused on rolling back the last round of inequitable and ineffective tax cuts rather than digging us deeper and deeper into a new Gilded Age.

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