Romney's Glass Jaw

I was somewhat shocked and mystified to read in Friday's Wall Street Journal that Mitt Romney is skipping the Iowa straw poll. Of course his handlers pitched it as skipping all straw polls, but the story recalled Mitt's loss to Mike Hickabee in Iowa in 2007. And his fear that a 2011 loss would possibly derail his current lead among GOP candidates.

To paraphrase the Journal's William McGurn, this isn't what we need in the GOP presidential candidate race. We need a bare-knuckled brawl on principles, ideas and philosophies.

Instead, Mitt is trying to run out the clock before the primary season has even begun. Yes, we all know he hopes to win in friendly, neighboring New Hampshire. But after skipping the South Carolina debate, and now Iowa's straw poll, Mitt's beginning to look like Rudy in 2007- wait until some safe later primaries and hope for the best.

So it was mystifying to me that this weekend's Wall Street Journal column by the increasingly-irrelevant Peggy Noonan extolled Mitt's virtues and his "good week."

Most off the mark, I believe, was Noonan's belief that Romneycare actually makes Mitt invulnerable to Wonderboy's attacks. Is she kidding?

Romney is now a living flip-flop on health care. He pushed for a law he now criticizes. He wants to repeal one version of his plan- Obamacare- while bemoaning his own version.

This is strength?

No, it's more of Mitt's bifurcated, self-justifying solipsistic nonsense.

I don't endorse Romney. I don't think he's the GOP's best hope to attract crucial independent voters. But it doesn't bode well for the GOP race when the alleged front-runner is too afraid of loss to even show up in Iowa this summer.

If Mitt is so afraid of his lower-polling Republican competitors, how's he going to handle going up against a sitting president, no matter how weakened?

Karl Rove On Wonderboy's MidTerm Campaigning Ineptitude

Karl Rove wrote a nice piece in his weekly Wall Street Journal column the other day regarding Wonderboy's recent campaigning mistakes.


Why should we be surprised with Rove's assertions that Wonderboy is now making horrific mistakes in his midterm electioneering? Think about how the First Rookie got to the White House.


Prior to running for President, he'd only run once for federal office. That was when he bushwacked his mentor to get the Democratic Senate nomination, then happily stood by and allowed his Republican opponent's sealed divorce records to be used in the campaign. His comment when they appeared in the Chicago dailies was something like,


'When I heard/read about the divorce records, I went to get fitted for my swearing-in suit.'


Almost immediately upon arriving in the Senate, he began running for President.


This guy hasn't had a seriously issues-based, non -race-based campaign yet. Why should he know anything about presidential campaigning for other Congressional members?

Isn't his entire appeal and character based on- himself? His anointed minority ascension to the nation's and free world's most powerful job?

Can this guy even identify with anyone else deemed so far beneath his magnificent self?

Rove's editorial included some pretty terrific passages, including these,

"Last Saturday at a West Newton, Mass., fund-raiser, the president said, "facts and science and argument [do] not seem to be winning . . . because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared."


In a penetrating piece in the New York Times Magazine on Oct. 12, Peter Baker profiles a president who "believes he is the smartest person in any room," according to one prominent Democratic lawmaker. He and his aides think that the core of their difficulties is "a communications problem" and the result of a "miscalculation" that the president could "forge genuine bipartisan coalitions."


Then there is this priceless quote involving a Democratic Representative,


Earlier this year Rep. Marion Berry of Arkansas warned moderate Democrats of a midterm bloodbath comparable to 1994. "Well, the big difference here and in '94 was you've got me," he reported the president as having said. "We're going to see how much difference that makes now," Mr. Berry added. Yes, we will."



See what I mean?

It would seem that Wonderboy is so arrogant as to miss the reality of his own shockingly fast rise to power, and the uniquely temporal reasons for it. Thus, he can't really understand any politics that isn't about his personality or race or presumed unrivaled intellectual brilliance.

Rove is correct in assessing the president's Congressional campaigning shortcomings, but it shouldn't really come as any big surprise.

McCain's Flip Flop on Obama's Character

I discussed my vies on McCain's struggling campaign in this recent post.

Now, a week later, it seems to me that, if anything, McCain's confusion has increased. In the last few days, he's both run ads criticizing his opponent's character and ties to terrorist Bill Ayers, then come out at his own rally and defended the Illinois rookie Senator's character and values!

What's up with that?

Doesn't McCain understand that he has to hit and hit hard at his opponent's weakness on character?

Character matters in the President's office. Obama has trouble with the truth, much like Bill- and Hillary- Clinton do.

When I heard McCain actually say something like,

'My friends, you won't have to worry if my opponent wins this election. He is a good American,'

I think my jaw must have dropped open. It just leaves me incredulous that McCain can't figure out what a mixed message he's sending.

If he remains this indecisive, he'll lose.

Obama Runs From His On-Air Statements

So much for the courage of his convictions. Obama is in full retreat from some of his recent on-air comments.

The other morning, he was interviewed on CNBC. In the space of just a few minutes, he managed to backtrack on lauding Reagan as a transformational President.

Originally, he hailed Reagan as a "transformational President." Now, he says he really meant it derogatorily, observing that Reagan

'got blue collar voters to vote against their own interests,'

or something close to that terminology.

Then he was asked about his accusation of Bill Clinton being a liar. Again, originally, Obama was quite forceful claiming that Slick Willie is not telling the truth in statements he's made about Obama.

Under close examination, however, the novice Illinois Senator backpedaled at lightspeed, giving Bill a plea bargain down to something like 'getting his facts wrong,' and giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Then he recently backed away from his generic, demonizing statements about corporations when being questioned by Jack Welch on CNBC. Obama is all fire and brimstone about how bad big corporations and their workers are.

When Welch challenged him to offer something to employed workers with benefits, Obama declined. But claimed he knew the value of having functioning, profitable companies. Once again, he backed away quickly from his campaign rhetoric.

Peggy Noonan, in this weekend's Wall Street Journal, calls Obama "accomplished," with which statement I vociferously disagree.

However, I am in agreement when she observes that he never really goes for the jugular. He faints at striking back, then stops. It seems he's the same way when fighting back against accusations.

Perhaps this trait will either ultimately sink Obama in his bid for his party's nomination, or cause him to lose the general election.

It very much reminds me of a 1964 Henry Fonda movie concerning a race for the White House. Entitled "The Best Man," with a Gore Vidal screenplay, it revolves around Fonda's inability to use every means at his disposal to win his party's nomination. Being by Gore Vidal, it turns on homosexuality. Cliff Robertson's character, a rival for the nomination, is learned to be homosexual, and Fonda must use it to crush Robertson. If memory serves, he doesn't.

It seems that Obama is similar to Fonda's character. He just can't pull the trigger and be honest about his criticisms of his opponents. When confronted by the media, he inevitably pulls back and goes into denial mode.

Who wants, or needs a President with this characteristic. We need someone who will be truthful and willing to stand behind what s/he says.

Evidently, that's not Obama. Or Hillary, either, for that matter.

Are We All "Clean" Now, Joe?

Biden's recent remark on Baracka Obama Bin Baden's being young and 'clean' is the latest in what is already proving to be a Presidential season of stunningly hilarious proportions.

Mind you, Biden is an already-failed candidate from some years back. I believe that was the year he was discovered to be, and acknowledged being, a plagarist.

Now, the narrow-minded Senator from Delaware is trying his hand at racial slurs. This YouTube clip, here, captures Biden slurring Indians, 7-11 and Dunkin' Donuts. It's hysterical.

I found it while searching for the Obama clip. I have yet to locate the latter, but will post a link when I find it. I'm curious as to exactly what the context was.

As I mentioned with Chris Dodd, I don't really fully understand why Biden is doing this again. Doesn't he remember John Glenn nearly declaring personal bankruptcy over his campaign debts in either 1976 or 1980? This is expensive, serious stuff. How can Dodd and Biden possibly hope to compete financially with the likes of Giuliani, Clinton and McCain?

So, we have Hillary and Biden off on the wrong foot within weeks of beginning their campaigns. You just have to love American Presidential politics, don't you?