The Capt'n be using his spyglass to search out those scalawag political bilge rats, and givm a broadside when they need to be exposed for their skulduggery.
Read these two Bio’s, the parallels are astonishing. Obama is the first African American who has a real chance to be elected the President of the United States. Just like the fictional David Palmer, they both had issues to overcome.
The Spyglass Prediction, with Oprah’s endorsement, Obama will be the 2008 Democratic nominee.
David Palmer was a United States Senator from Maryland who ran for President. He was elected after the assassination attempts made on him were foiled by Jack Bauer. Although he initially sought a second term, he bowed out of the race after the opposing candidate learned that David had lied to the chief of police in order to protect his ex-wife, Sherry Palmer, who was under suspicion for involvement in a man's death.
Throughout the series, Palmer's role as President is often vital to the successful foiling of terrorist plots. Palmer is seen as a good leader who makes difficult decisions without much hesitation. On several occasions, his intervention as President and the execution of his Presidential powers helped the Counter Terrorist Unit.
Say goodbye to Mitt Romney's soaring rhetoric about religious freedom and tolerance - that sure didn't last long, eh? - and say hello an attack ad against Mike Huckabee on illegal immigration (via...
By GLEN JOHNSON and LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writers 2 hours, 14 minutes ago
BOSTON - His shot at the Republican presidential nomination in jeopardy, Mitt Romney will begin running a TV ad against Iowa front-runner Mike Huckabee on illegal immigration starting Tuesday while weighing how much negative campaigning he can add to the methodical plan he's followed all year.
The ad says the former governors have a lot in common — but not on illegal immigration, an important issue in Iowa, which will lead off nomination voting with its caucuses on Jan. 3.
"Mitt Romney stood up, and vetoed in-state tuition for illegal aliens, opposed driver's licenses for illegals," the ad says. "Mike Huckabee? Supported in-state tuition benefits for illegal immigrants. Huckabee even supported taxpayer-funded college scholarships for illegal aliens."
"On immigration, the choice matters," the ad ends.
With Huckabee surging in Iowa — and showing strength nationally as well — Romney offers positive as well as negative words on his rival.
"Two former governors. Two good family men. Both pro-life. Both support a constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage," the ad says — then it focuses on what it says are stark differences on illegal immigration.
Romney's campaign characterized the "contrast ad" — the first in which he names a rival — as a reaction to Huckabee's own new TV commercial in which he touts his immigration proposal.
The elevated rhetoric — including the Romney campaign's mass e-mailing Monday of an anti-Huckabee Web column — reflects a growing sense of urgency at Romney headquarters, where the game plan all year has been predicated on bowling over rivals with victories in lead-voting Iowa and New Hampshire.
With Huckabee taking the lead in polls in Iowa and Sen. John McCain of Arizona coming on in New Hampshire, which votes Jan. 8, campaign officials have been debating whether to hit harder or simply take shots only as they present themselves.
Huckabee also has moved up in national surveys that had long shown Rudy Giuliani leading. A CNN-Opinion Research Corp. survey has Giuliani and Huckabee essentially tied for the top spot, 24 percent for Giuliani, 22 percent for Huckabee. Just last month in this survey, Giuliani had 28 percent and Huckabee 10 percent.
Romney officials are divided over how serious the threat is, noting that Huckabee is just beginning to face the same media scrutiny Romney has already encountered but also operating under the assumption that "Huckabee is for real."
In Iowa, Romney has lost his monthslong lead to Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and one-time Baptist preacher who is a favorite among religious conservatives who could be pivotal in the state's GOP caucuses.
On Monday, Huckabee started running a TV ad in Iowa promoting his plan to fight illegal immigration.
"It ought to be at least as difficult to get across an international border as it is to get on an airplane in our own home town," Huckabee says in the ad. "We need to make it clear that we will say no to amnesty and no to sanctuary cities," he says. "Our government has failed us. Build a border fence. Secure the border and do it now."
For weeks, Romney's campaign has been wrestling over whether to run hard-hitting ads on what aides consider the former Arkansas governor's most vulnerable spots — taxes, immigration, ethics and prisoner parole — or go softer and gamble that Huckabee is an object of curiosity whose popularity will fade with scrutiny and wilt under the challenge of Romney's strong ground organization.
As Huckabee has risen, Romney has assailed him, particularly on immigration, but his criticism hasn't seemed to slow Huckabee's rise. Iowa Republicans also have received literature in their mailboxes characterizing Huckabee and three other Republican candidates as soft on illegal immigration. The mail piece specifically describes Huckabee as committed to "eligibility for state-supported college scholarships." Officials say more such direct mail pieces are planned along with the immigration TV ad.
In the e-mail sent Monday, under the banner, "Those who know him the best," the campaign quotes Arkansas Republican Jackson T. "Steve" Stephens Jr. lamenting that he did not mount a planned gubernatorial challenge to Huckabee in 1991.
"If I had it to do over again, I would probably challenge Huckabee," Stephens said in the column on TownHall.com, complaining about Huckabee's fiscal record.
On the other side of the ledger, Romney is well aware of the Democratic race in Iowa in 2004, when Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt watched their strong standing in the state evaporate after running negative ads. They never recovered. John Kerry and John Edwards benefited.
As he deals with Iowa, Romney also is carefully watching his standing in New Hampshire, where public polls show him leading by a wide margin as McCain and Giuliani duke it out for second place.
But internal Romney surveys show McCain in a solid second-place position and inching up in the state, where he won in 2000 over George W. Bush, while Giuliani has slipped.
Unlike Romney, McCain has the luxury of a strategy that lets him camp out in New Hampshire in the homestretch.
He spent six days last week traversing the state after he secured the coveted endorsement of the New Hampshire Union Leader. Curt Schilling, the Red Sox pitcher beloved in the Northeast, joined him on the trail for a day, and filmed a TV ad for McCain. The candidate returns to the state Sunday.
Other challenges creating angst within Romney headquarters:
_He cast himself as the most hard-line conservative candidate on cultural issues from his campaign's outset, and, in doing so, watched as religion — and his Mormon faith — became a focal point of the race as he squared off against Huckabee.
In a strategy shift, Romney gave a religion speech last week; it got mixed reviews.
_Romney has sought to be seen as a firm opponent of illegal immigration, a salient issue in Iowa in particular, and made it a centerpiece of his campaign in this state.
But his pitch was undercut last week when he learned for a second time that his landscaping company had allowed undocumented workers to labor at his suburban Boston home. Romney promptly fired the company after giving its owner a second chance last year.
_Romney hasn't been able to shake the notion that he's inauthentic, given his record of reversing course on abortion rights — he now opposes them — and shifting to the right on various other issues as he embarked on his candidacy.
___
Associated Press Writer Liz Sidoti reported from Des Moines, Iowa.
Mason-Dixon is out with new polling in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. In Iowa (Dec 3-6, 400 Dem LV, 400 GOP LV, MoE +/-5.0%), Clinton has a 2-point lead over Obama, and on the other...
The world looks safer, friendlier, more hopeful than it did as we approached Christmastime last year. Then, we were on the defensive, perhaps on the verge of defeat, in Iraq. The...
"Given the lack of time available," Sen. Mitch McConnell said last week, "the best way to deal with the troop funding issue would be in the context of some kind of settlement on an overall omnibus...
CONCORD AND PORTSMOUTH, NH - As former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's astonishing rise in Iowa polls continues, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is faced with the possibility that his...
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- I had trouble choosing a lead for this column on Mitt Romney's nice speech about religious freedom last Thursday morning. I am for religious freedom and for freedom from religion....
As one who writes words for a living, I find it gratifying that almost two-thirds of the public says they support the writers' strike. Thanks, America. We humble scriveners salute you. If you have...
The balance of power between men and women has changed radically as Hillary Clinton has moved from first lady to senator to candidate for president, but the cliches persist: Neither the woman nor the...
The right to free expression of opinion and belief -- though constrained in its extremes during wartime -- is not something that can be negotiated in a free country. For it is the most fundamental...
Mike Rigidway is as offensive an individual as you will ever hope to meet. He is deliberately contrarian and so monomaniacally self-centered that you register on his radar only as ears. Ears to hear his obsessive/compulsive rants about "How are you today?" or "How's the weather?"
Mike does not speak except to continually praise his own perspective by diagnosing and analyzing his own perspective. You are ears and should be grateful to be in His presence. The problem with ideologues is that they are ultimately boring. Politics is people. Nutjobs like Rigidway don't even care if his petty tirades disrupt the natural flow of political discourse. He is a statue of congratulatory self-righteousness; a never-moving traffic stop.
He has no regard for anyone else. Basically, he has absolutely no understanding of politics. None whatsoever. He delights in being an impediment when progress is required. He gleefully obstructs the course of human events.If you have foolishly given him your home number, he may deign to call you at 3:00 AM, that you may glory in wonder at the glory of his thinking on whatever. Resistance is futile. I am the Bored. Mike has an unnatural focus on himself. The ever-corrupt Utah GOP, however, is justified in banning him. The party is a political body, Mike is an Ayatollah-wannabe. He's about as willing to negotiate, recognize that others might have a point or stake on an outcome as your average shark. Rigidway is an American Taliban.
I have no idea who Towner is but I can tell that in this duel, he, like all of us, is/are the offended party. If you read Ms. Biele's article you may discern that even she, the objective goddess, has problems with Imam Mike, pboh.
Some people advance principles by speaking forcefully for them. Rigidway offends by speaking selfishly about them. I don't care how big an arse Towner is, he's a better human being than his logorrhea-prone nemesis.
If you agree with Mike's alleged principles, find another leader. Someone who gets every door slammed in his face is never going to be able to help you advance any cause.
Politics | Party Crasher: Messy legal case and blogging blowback lead GOP activist to form a new political party
By Katharine Biele Posted 11/22/2007
That big tent of the Republicans was just a little too roomy for Mark Towner, whose case against political pertinacity has brought him to the supreme courts of cyberspace and Utah. In that order.
Towner, once a Republican insider who made runs at political office, has big-time beefs with Mike Ridgway, a conservative GOP gadfly, gnat and general pain in many people’s asses. So big were those beefs that Towner charged Ridgway with stalking him and his family at an April 2006 Salt Lake County Republican convention. A 3rd District judge agreed to an injunction, but Ridgway has claimed infringement of his First Amendment rights, and so the issue now rests in Utah’s high court.
This might be one of the messiest cases in Utah history, what with all the difficult personalities, cutthroat politics, layers of legal charges and, yes, the Internet. But leave the mess to the courts.
Towner’s case is just one of many that Ridgway is battling, although, for Towner, it’s the culmination of his disdain for both the Republican Party in general and Ridgway specifically.
“My frustration has been with Ridgway and the lack of response from the Republican Party,” says Towner, who quit the party and his state committee positions after the convention. It’s what forced him to take legal action “against this guy for his behavior since 2000,” Towner says.
Ridgway is widely known for a sharp and tireless tongue that gets him into trouble. He has spent time in jail on trespassing charges. Some say he likes to butt bodies; others say he just likes to get in your face.
At any rate, Ridgway has his trespassing case pending in Sandy City Court, where his public defender tried her damnedest to get him to plead no contest and pay a $150 fine. But Ridgway saw this as a kind of Larry Craig trap. Called a diversion plea, it would keep him out of jail until he broke the law again—and Ridgway won’t agree that he broke the law and believes that his friends in the GOP hierarchy will call the cops every time they see him.
Well, for sure, Enid Greene would. And she used to be so trusting. In a witness statement from the trespass incident, she says she’s been “physically and verbally” confronted by Ridgway, and she attached an e-mail from him to the police report that she considers abusive.
It was from the Book of Mormon and includes this little passage: “And I will come unto you, and if there be any among you that has a desire for freedom, yea, if there be even a spark of freedom remaining, behold I will stir up insurrections among you, even until those who have desires to usurp power and authority shall become extinct.”
While Ridgway says he focused on the freedom aspect of the passage and how his GOP detractors were acting like “king-men” in their greed for power, Greene appeared focused on passages about smiting people down with a sword.
Now, the state Supreme Court gets to deal with Ridgway on the Towner issue. And it’s not just a matter of whether Ridgway’s been hiding in Towner’s bushes. The injunction makes reference to electronic media, which both Towner and Ridgway employ by way of blogs and e-mail.
Towner says one of the questions to be resolved is whether he is being cyberstalked. “[Ridgeway is] pretty competent on computers. I couldn’t even go on my computer without this guy harassing me, and I have been slandered all over the Internet—Facebook, YouTube—OK, I’ve got thick skin,” Towner says.
And he needs a thick hide. One blogger facetiously posts, “Mark Towner Has No Morals and Eats Kittens!” Another says he clubs baby seals. And others question whether he knows “blogger ethics.” Say what?
Sure, Towner is waiting for the court to rule, but he’s not twiddling his thumbs. He’s already registered a new political party name—the Unaffiliated Party of Utah—because he’s just fed up with political machines. He’s gathering signatures to try the political party route.
“I’ve been enough of an insider to see how it’s handled, and the system can be gamed,” he says.
The media is making a huge deal out of Mike Huckabee’s surge in Iowa, where recent polls have him usurping the lead Mitt Romney has maintained for months. The spin is that Romney’s support is slipping because Protestant leaning Iowans will as a matter of faith support Huckabee, an erstwhile Baptist minister, over Romney, an erstwhile Mormon bishop and stake president.
While I do not doubt that the religions of these two men play some role in how Iowans are choosing how they will vote in next month’s caucuses, I do not believe that this is the most significant factor. It makes for salacious press, but there’s a bigger, more mundane story to be told.
Romney chose early on to make Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina — the early primary states — the focus of his campaign. This was arguably a very risky approach. This used to be the standard model to follow. Lesser known candidates could get some recognition and bounce out of good performances in early primary states. But that worked well when the primary cycle was drawn out over many months. People in later primary states often waited to make up their minds or even pay attention to the race until they saw how the early primaries went. Candidates that performed well in early primaries were able to raise money that allowed them to campaign in the next round of states.
In next year’s highly compressed primary season, it is questionable how well this approach will work. There simply isn’t much time to raise funds and build good campaigns in other states between the Iowa caucuses on January 3 and Giga-Tuesday (or whatever they’re now calling it) on February 5. Rudy Giuliani is betting that good performance in January is not essential to good performance in February. His efforts in early primary states have been meager. He has spent most of his capital in the big states that will be voting on February 5. This too is a gamble. How well this will work is anybody’s guess.
Romney has spent more money than any other GOP candidate so far. And he has spent much of it in the early primary states. His campaign has argued all along that he is low in the polls because people don’t know who he is. By now Iowans know Romney as well as they’re going to. He isn’t falling in the polls. He just hit a plateau a few weeks ago and he is holding steady. Huckabee’s surging support has come from the vast numbers of heretofore uncommitted Iowans. What this means is that Iowans know Romney, but a lot of them want something different.
As for national polls, Romney has been holding steady for a long time now. His campaign has been betting that he would surge dramatically following the early primaries. While this might have been a fool’s hope to begin with, even that hope will vanish if Romney doesn’t perform well in those early primaries. Despite his modest standing in the polls, Romney has made lots of news because he has a strong campaign machine that knows how to cater to (sometimes lazy) reporters.
Many conservatives have long suggested that Giuliani’s lead would diminish as people got closer to actually voting. The trend seems to be going that way. Fred Thompson isn’t doing any better than he was when he was still unannounced. John McCain has gone through ups and downs, but his polling numbers are also pretty much in a holding pattern. The lower tier candidates are muddling around in the single digits.
Ron Paul has raised eyebrows with his fundraising, but he seems incapable of drawing much support from likely GOP primary voters. There is some truth to his supporters’ claims that the polls are skewed because much of Paul’s support is coming from people newly registering as Republicans to vote for him, so that they are underrepresented in polling that focuses on traditional GOP primary voters. But even correcting for this would not significantly raise Paul in the polls. His support is deep, but not broad. And broad support is what will be needed to prevail in next year’s GOP primaries.
Huckabee has surged in polls nationwide, despite the fact that his fundraising and spending has been only a fraction of what other “top-tier” candidates have raised and spent. One critic said that Huckabee’s TV spots look like they were filmed with the family video camera in somebody’s garage. And his surge is not limited to religious folks. To me, Huckabee’s policies seem like a strange mixture of conservatism, classical liberalism, populism and socialism. But Huckabee has something going for him that Romney never seems have captured and that Giuliani seems to have somewhat lost.
Whatever his policies, Mike Huckabee comes across as hopeful and positive. He performs well in debates and in public appearances. People come away from such experiences with a generally good feeling about him. For all of his magnificent assets, Romney does not seem to be able to accomplish this feat. Giuliani sometimes seems to exude positiveness, but he has seemed much less able to do so in recent weeks as he has engaged in a round of Mitt bashing. Romney goaded Giuliani into this, and Giuliani reacted. Some people have been turned off. While both Mitt and Rudy are using these tactics to distinguish themselves in the minds of voters, they have succeeded in allowing Huckabee to distinguish himself as the positive optimist among the GOP hoard of presidential candidates.
But don’t expect Huckabee’s surge to go unchallenged. As Byron York notes in this NRO article, Huckabee has his own Willie Horton problem, and it’s worse than Mitt’s. While the story hasn’t hit the national media circuit yet, don’t expect Huckabee’s challengers to leave it that way. This isn’t the only glop of mud they will sling at him. Even his name could be a challenge. As one acquaintance tells me, he can’t keep from giggling if he says “President Huckabee” out loud.
In the meantime, Romney has become convinced that too many GOP voters are holding his religion against him. He has decided to issue a major speech tomorrow morning on the role of faith in America. No doubt it will be a great speech. But that won’t stop it from being, as Jonah Goldberg suggests (here), a farce of JFK’s hallmark speech on religion and politics. Here again, Romney is attempting to achieve some positive product differentiation. He’s likely to achieve product differentiation, but I doubt it will work out in the way he wants.
We’re down to squeeze time now. The Iowa caucuses are 29 days away. Giga-Tuesday is less than a month after that. We will probably know by the time we go to bed on February 5 who the Democratic presidential nominee will be, but we may not know even by the next morning who the GOP nominee will be. The GOP field is quite broad. There may be, as Michael Barone suggests, a brokered agreement within a few weeks after the bulk of the primaries are complete. The candidates know that even if they don’t manage to break out into a significant lead, any votes they get can be used as bargaining chips if negotiations become necessary.
Like many other GOP voters, I find myself uncommitted to any candidate at present. I see pluses and minuses to all of them. Many conservatives want to vote for the next Ronald Reagan. But none of the GOP candidates seem to be the next Reagan. Bill Bennett is fond of making the salient point that at this time in the 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan didn’t look like the next Ronald Reagan either. He grew into that as time went on.
While there are plenty of dour-minded conservatives, many reject the Pat Robertson view that America is headed irretrievably down the tubes. Many still have a very positive view of America, and they want leaders that reflect that attitude. Right now, Mike Huckabee seems to exhibit this kind of optimism. The other GOP candidates; not so much. Of course, things can change quickly in the current political climate. We’ll simply have to wait and see what develops over the next few weeks.
CHICAGO -- Before hitting the trail today with Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama celebrated a hometown send-off of sorts at the city's historic -- and aging -- Riviera Theater last night. With tickets...
“My frustration has been with Ridgway and the lack of response from the Republican Party,” says Towner, who quit the party and his state committee positions after the convention. It’s what forced him to take legal action “against this guy for his behavior since 2000,” Towner says. 
