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[nenjin]

He lost me when he started humming on Ron Paul's nuts without the same degree of criticism he leveled at virtually everyone else.

What if Judge Napolitano was just another political operative just like the ones he decries?

[mainiac]

I watched that and thought it mostly true.

Funny, I thought it was a load of crap.

You don't need to imagine shadowy people behind the curtain to explain the two party system any more then you need them to explain the laws of physics.  We have a two party system because we have a congressional district based first past the post voting system using large districts in a large nation.

[RedKing]

No, you need shadowy people behind a curtain otherwise you have to admit that we've done this to ourselves. Which is not a pleasant truth to bear.

[Deadmeat1471]

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

I watched that and thought it mostly true.

And i'm fairly sure that is why he got fired.

Lol I like this guy, I guess that means hes not fit for fox news.

[G-Flex]

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

I watched that and thought it mostly true.

And i'm fairly sure that is why he got fired.

Lol I like this guy, I guess that means hes not fit for fox news.

I liked him too, until I realized he was just being a Ron Paul shill. Surprise. It's ironic, considering Ron Paul is as much smoke-and-mirrors as any other politician. Well, maybe not as much as the other candidates, but enough, and in his own way.

[PTTG??]

I like the part where he believes that the market can regulate itself perfectly as a massive interacting network of independent agents, but doesn't believe in evolution.

[Aqizzar]

You don't know how right you are.  The Colorado/Minnesota/Missouri caucuses were essentially mock-votes, since new caucuses will be held in March, and the Paul campaign organizers used them as their main testbed for an interesting strategy.

Caucuses really are a tool from another century, wherein everyone shows up in a room, basically "nominate" winners by acclamation, and then campaign appointees are given the job of tallying the votes afterwards, are totally in their rights to tell everyone else to go home.  Technically, even though Paul got a substantially smaller portion of the vote in Colorado (for instance), he got almost all of the "delegates" (which is to say, nobody got any because of the calendar shenanigans, but he proved the method works).  Ron Paul doesn't make any bones about this either - here's a pretty good article that lays out the whole story, grounded in an email the Paul campaign ad-men sent out to their mailing list supporters.

    We are confident in gaining a much larger share of delegates than even our impressive showing yesterday indicates. As an example of our campaign’s delegate strength, take a look at what has occurred in Colorado:

    - In one precinct in Larimer County, the straw poll vote was 23 for Santorum, 13 for Paul, 5 for Romney, 2 for Gingrich.  There were 13 delegate slots, and Ron Paul got ALL 13.
         
    - In a precinct in Delta County the vote was 22 for Santorum, 12 for Romney, 8 for Paul, 7 for Gingrich. There were 5 delegate slots, and ALL 5 went to Ron Paul.
         
    - In a Pueblo County precinct, the vote was 16 for Santorum, 11 for Romney, 3 for Gingrich and 2 for Paul. There were 2 delegate slots filled, and both were filled by Ron Paul supporters.
         
    - We are also seeing the same trends in Minnesota, Nevada, and Iowa, and in Missouri as well.

And yes, they're doing the same thing in Maine.  One suspects the Republican nomination process is going to be pretty different by 2016.

[RedKing]

So....abuse an arcane and outdated electoral system for fun and profit?

Yup, sounds like a true reformer. 

[Aqizzar]

Well, he certainly has established his desire to take every other aspect of American governance back to the early 19th century.  Why should the federal election process be any different?

The man's just that much of a traditionalist.

[Nadaka]

I wonder if Rick Santorum would endorse Dave Mustaine of Megadeth?

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/megadeth-singer-endorses-rick-santorum-calls-newt-gingrich-164220697.html

[Leafsnail]

Vaguely hint at a conspiracy.  Say a lot of things that most people wouldn't disagree with but contain no substance or actual ideas.  Set up your candidate as a solution to all our problems.

I'll admit it was cleverly done, but if you examine it for one moment you'll see it's as vacuous and hypocritical as hell.

[Aqizzar]

I wonder if Rick Santorum would endorse Dave Mustaine of Megadeth?

Puts an interesting spin on my fanship, but who the fuck cares.  Dave Mustaine is metal enough to vote family values.  Kinda ironic, judging by stuff like Peace Sells and Back In The Day you'd think he'd be a Paulite, but he doesn't like people calling Americans bullies, and wants a nice guy president.  'Kay.

Romney:
I was floored the other day to see that Mitt Romney's five boys have a $100 million trust fund. Where does a guy make that much money?

When a mega-successful rockstar says "Goddamn, how rich can you be?" you're pretty fucking rich.

[RedKing]

Wonder if he [Ron Paul] supports the Three-Fifths Compromise....

New national poll data with two very different results:
Rasmussen, 2/14:
39% - Santorum
27% - Romney
15% - Gingrich
10% - Paul

It should be noted that Rasmussen is known for being one of the most inaccurate major pollsters, with a distinct Republican/conservative lean to their results. Shouldn't be such an issue in a GOP-only primary poll, but still....their methods are often unsound.

Gallup, 2/14:
33% - Romney
31% - Santorum
15% - Gingrich
8% - Paul

Either way, Romney is suddenly in a dogfight for the nomination. Word is he's filling up the advertising gun with money and getting ready to blanket the airwaves in Michigan and Arizona. Santorum will be a more difficult target than Gingrich though.

But here's the thing...if these races keep getting split say, 35/30/20/15, then I don't think any one candidate is going to get enough pledged delegates to win outright prior to the convention. The preponderance of proportional primaries (say that five times fast) means this could drag out in a big way. The key prize down the stretch might be California: it's got the most delegates (172) and it's winner-take-all. Sort of.

To explain, the winner for the state gets X number of delegates, and then each candidates gets another X delegates for every Y Congressional districts they won. South Carolina was the same way, which is how Gingrich got 23 delegates, but Romney still eked out 2 for winning the area around Columbia. And although you'd think "There's absolutely no way a guy like Santorum could win California...." he's polling only 2 points behind Romney. And that was a week ago. The thing about California Republicans is that they tend to be more extreme than the average because they feel like a desperate outpost of red in the sea of blue that is the "People's Republic of California".

Almost all the other major states are proportional or non-binding. Texas, with its mammoth 155 delegates, is proportional this year for the first time.

Romney's current lead of 98 delegates to Santorum's 44 is in no way, shape or form insurmountable. After Arizona (which is a paltry 23 delegates), the next winner-take-all election (other than Puerto Rico) isn't until Apr 3, when Wisconsin and Maryland go on the same day as Texas. All Santorum has to do between now and then is run neck-and-neck with Romney, maybe scratching out a few wins here and there, and then take those two states and Romney's lead is gone. Now, neither would have enough delegates to win outright, but oh the fun that would bring about for the rest of the race. Especially in California, which doesn't go until June 5.

If Santorum stays viable and doesn't commit any huge gaffes, I think this race gets even uglier, I think the battle for California will go down in history as one of the most expensive (and rancorous) primary campaigns in history, and I think we *still* end up in a brokered convention. Which could split the party in two, regardless of whom they settle on as a candidate.

I wonder if Rick Santorum would endorse Dave Mustaine of Megadeth?

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/megadeth-singer-endorses-rick-santorum-calls-newt-gingrich-164220697.html

I...WHAT THE F**K??? Ok, Megadeth is officially dead to me. Seriously...WTF?

[Deadmeat1471]

What are you guys opinions on Gingrich?

Firstly I think his personal life is irrelivant.
However in debates all I hear him ever say is, 'I did this with Reagan'. When his credibility is questioned, it's always 'i'm with the ghost of reagan'. The other candidates really do rip him apart too about his political qualifications.

That said, he does seem to be one of the most seasoned and experienced politicians in the running. I think he is actually a better politician than he himself makes out. If he could just drop the Reagan shit, I think he might have gone far. He also doesn't seem loonie like the other candidates.

[nenjin]

Someone's personal life is not irrelevant to politics, to me.

You can't be a shitty person in your day-to-day life but somehow become a beneficent ruler when it becomes your job.

Similarly, you can't be a horrible, corrupt despot of a ruler while being a really great guy in your personal life. Character is not mutually exclusive been your private and public lives.

Now, not all of your personal behavior extends to your public behavior....but in Gingrich's case, he's demonstrated the only thing that matters to him is what's good for Newt. Fuck compassion, fuck consistency, fuck clarity even. I think if you only judge a politician based on either sphere of their life, personal or public, then you get exactly what you deserve. Which is a dysfunctional SOB at the helm of the ship.

And in America, the land where every politician spews moral virtue in every sentence they speak, their ability to live up to those ideals in their personal life is of paramount importance to their performance in government, and to upholding the values they swear they believe in...and swear they'll protect.

Honestly, when people tell who a person ultimately is inside has no bearing on politics.....I kind of look at them like they have squid mouth.