AP: Romney, McCain to run Feb. 5 ads
Reuters: In White House race, it's delegates that count
AP: McCain changes story on tax cut stance
USNews.com: For Giuliani Supporters, Florida Is a Bitter End
AP: Tiger Wood takes lead in Dubai Classic
Reuters: It's official: mail is slow as snails
I have no way of verifying or stopping that but I can ask that if you are doing this be a bit more indirect with your answer…there are others that like to play and they could use a hint from those of you that know what the country is.
Play along…its also fun for me to try to decode your clues!
Last week the county was Israel.
This week is a bit harder.
6 out of 10
I will admit that had I been home last night I would have watched the debates but not being there meant that I was only able to catch the replay late last night and by that time I just wasn’t all that interested.
However, I did get to see Romney call McCain out on the lies the McCain camp spread about Romney wanting a timetable for Iraq.
What I found interesting was that McCain’s only retort about the lies was that Romney had “negative attack ads” playing against McCain and Huckabee’s record.
So let me get this straight:
An ad showing that your opponent voted against a tax cut = “negative attack ad”
Lying about your opponent = acceptable politics
Hmm, good to know for the future.
We see the video footage all of the time of people stealing ATM machines…how long before these big machines are stolen?
I’m not really happy about the results but I think the exit polls put things into perspective:
43% of people polled said Abortion should be Legal and 45% of them voted for McCain.
42% of people polled said the Crist endorsement was important and 54% of them voted for McCain.
32% of people polled said that they had a Negative Opinion of Bush and 45% of them voted for McCain.
11% of people polled said that they were Liberal and 49% of them voted for McCain.
28% of people polled said that they were Moderate and 43% of them voted for McCain.
On the reverse side:
50% said that the highest priority for the President is Cutting Taxes and 35% of them voted for Romney.
61% of people polled said they were Conservative and 37% of them voted for Romney.
50% of people polled said that Issues were important to their vote and 35% of them voted for Romney.
40% of people polled said we should Deport Illegal Aliens and 38% of them voted for Romney.
68% of people polled said that they had a Positive Opinion of Bush and 35% of them voted for Romney.
44% of people polled said that they attended Church Weekly and 31% voted for Romney.
52% of people polled said that Abortion should be Illegal and 35% of them voted for Romney.
So tell me…who is the conservative candidate? Why would we nominate McCain to represent the GOP this fall?
Are you going to watch the State of the Union tonight?
Do you think that the President will “calm” America on the economic issues or just exacerbate the problem?
Will he talk to the gains in Iraq and the fears of Iran?
What issues do you want him to talk about?
I’m still not sure if I will watch tonight…If I do I’ll report my opinions of the speech.
This week is pretty easy. 2 out of 10
(To preempt the attacks I will get…the land in question here is based on what is “under the countries control.” I am in no way making a political statement about the region.)
I saw this article online last night and nearly gagged on the clear intent of the article.
If you head to the website for the, LOL, The Center for Public Integrity (that name is just too funny when you read articles like this one) you will find the cover story is: The War Card: Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War
They are claiming that the Bush administration knowingly lead the US into the Iraqi war with premeditated malice. They want everyone to believe that the world all knew that Iraq had no WMD and it was only through Bush and his administrations use of 935 statements over a 2 year period were the American people duped into believing that the war was needed.
They ignore all of the other people that were saying the same thing; Jacque Chirac of France, President Clinton, VP Al Gore, Madeline Albright, Senator Kerry, and Senator Clinton just to name a few. The facts were believed to be known it wasn’t until the country had been secured that we found out that the intelligence estimates from all across the globe had been incorrect.
As journalists they intentionally use inflammatory language such as “false pretenses” to lead to their thinking versus laying out all of the facts and allowing you to come to your own conclusions because then they wouldn’t be able to make you believe that the Bush administration knew all along that there were no WMD…because we all know that we just went in there for the oil, right?
I think if their intent was to try to smear a great President then they have done a great hatchet job with this story. I am sorry that I’m even paying attention to it but we all have to do our part to point out that just because you have a snappy name like “Public Integrity” doesn’t mean that you are really in the business of maintaining any degree of public morality. In this case these hatful people are just trying to push their agenda.
Let me get this straight; the UN and enviro-nazis like Algore, have spent the last decade telling us that we need to move fast on the ‘global warming’ crisis and have pushed the world into using new fuels without ever considering the consequences. While skeptics in the scientific community and people like you and me have been saying lets take this slow and make sure the data is accurate before we do something that will make matters worse.
Well now we get this story from the UN which in part says that the quick transition over to biofuels has increased real food prices around the world and in order to meet the demand for the new fuel natural sources that reduce CO2 (forests) are being destroyed to plant crops.
Funny…I thought these people said they knew what they were doing.
“I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort.”
Can someone tell Fred that the reason he has to drop out is because they DIDN’T put much effort into this race!!
Well Fred did the right thing and dropped out…how much longer are we going to have to endure Huckabee?
I regularly debate a little with my co-workers about the elections and politics and we have been spending time each week before a primary picking our winners.
This weekend we have the SC primary and the NV caucus. Here are my predictions:
NV - GOP:
Romney (by 10 or more)
McCain
Huckabee (will not break 12%)
SC - GOP:
McCain (too close to call with Huckabee...I think it is a coin flip)
Huckabee
Romney (distant 3rd...maybe he will get 15% if he is lucky...but 3rd place still earns him delegates!!)
NV – Dems:
Clinton will win NV by a 5+ point margin
Obama
Edwards
I went on to predict that Thompson will drop out of the race this weekend. And while Edwards is not doing very well he will stick it out until Super Tuesday and drop out that Wednesday.
Our debate ensued when I said that a win in SC for a GOP nominee is not as important as it once was. That set off a bit of a fire storm.
Historically speaking SC has been the linchpin in any GOP candidacy…you had to win either IA or NH and then SC to get the nomination but times have changed.
Due to so many states crowding the early part of the year we can not make to same assumptions about what a IA, NH, or SC win means anymore. In fact NH and SC delegate counts have been cut in half by the RNC due to them trying to compete with these other states (who like NH and SC are dealing with a 50% reduction of their delegates) this means while you may not want to deal with WY, MI, and NV these states suddenly mean something. Ignoring them does nothing. The issues presented by these states upping their primaries has had a major impact on this primary season and those to come in the future.
If this were 1996, SC would be key to the GOP nomination but this is 2008 and the primary calendar has been radically altered. Romney and Giuliani both saw this change as an opportunity to make a dent in states that had in the past been ignored and it is paying off for Romney and Giuliani's gamble is still to be seen.
Right now Romney is winning the delegate count by 10, a win in NV will put him over 25 ahead and even if Huckabee wins SC out right he will still only be in second place. Florida will ultimately go to McCain or Romney...if it goes to McCain then we are in for a long fight on Super Tuesday...if it goes to Romney then McCain Drops out. A third place finish for Huckabee in FL may be enough for him to bow out but I wouldn't put it past him to just hang in another week just to see how Feb 5th turns out but he will be out before the Wisconsin Primary.
Giuliani can still be a spoiler but it looks like the Democrat strategy of holding out until Super Tuesday may go belly up on him. He is dropping big time in the FL and California polls even his large leads in NY and NJ seem to be slipping in favor of another moderate, McCain.
If you have any predictions please lets hear them!!
Until then lets get back down to business…it is Thursday and that means it is time for Name that Country!!
Last week I thought I’d trip people up by going back to Africa with the choice of Zimbabwe but it looks like at least one of you knows your African countries!!
This week’s country I think is real easy but I’ll give it a 5 out of 10.
A day early but I have to do it…Last week’s country was in fact Spain!!!
This week is a bit harder…maybe…personally I don’t think so but I’m a little odd.
6 out of 10.
Well I will be heading down to Florida tonight and I can not guarantee that I will be able to post anything until next week but I thought that I should share with you the craziness that I am going to be undertaking.
Some of you that know me know that I enjoy running…okay maybe not ‘enjoy’ but know that I run…okay, maybe not ‘run’, it is more of a quick jog. All that aside, I set a goal for myself a couple of years ago to run a marathon in each of the 50 States before I turn 50 and this weekend I will be in Disney World running the Goofy race and a half challenge.
The Disney World Marathon is a weekend event with the ½ marathon being run on Saturday (you get a Donald Duck medal for completing the race) and the full marathon on Sunday (you get a Mickey Mouse medal for completing this race.) Well as some of you may know medals are one of the highlights of running any 26.2 mile course and when you couple that with unique medals such as these you will find runners clamoring to get both.
So Disney decided that in 2007 they would challenge runners to complete both races in the same weekend. If you completed them both in under the qualifying time you would not only get both medals for the races but Disney would present you with a 3rd medal (shaped as Goofy) for being ‘Goofy’ enough to do both!
Hearing this Challenge I knew I had to try to accomplish it. In talking with my fellow runners in the Saturday Morning Running Group I found 4 other hearty souls to join me in this adventure!
On Saturday and Sunday morning we will begin racing at 6:00 AM EST so please keep us in your thoughts.
I will be sure to post a link to my race report when I am done so that you can read what I went through to get 3 Disney medals.
Have a great week and I’ll post when I can.
GOPFOLK
If you heard “if we are punishing girls like that, that is unacceptable," what would you think the person was talking about?
Do you think that "It's critical that these young women have a chance to bond with their babies," is in reference to hospitals and healthcare providers?
Well according to the Denverpost.com we are talking about teenage mothers who are requesting maternity leave from high school!! (link)
Maybe they should not have gotten pregnant in the first place!! How come now that they are pregnant they are concerned about their education? Maybe they should spend some time doing both schoolwork and bonding with their child since that is what they will need to do if they expect to finish their education.
I’m not a big fan of the awards shows but thought this was worth noting:
Golden Globes reduced to news conference
What I find most funny is that the writers are taking solace in the fact that A-listers such as George Clooney are not going to cross the picket line, since he belongs to six unions, when the reality is that if each of these multi-million dollar actors would surrender 1% of their salaries this writers strike would be over and there would be extra money in the union. But lets be honest, all these big time liberal actors want is the evil corporations to pay these people a “fair wage” while they sit back and get paid millions for the work of these writers.
What a bunch of hypocrites!!
We have all heard of the antics played by Hilary during her campaigns but do I believe that she would place 2 men in her audience to yell “Iron My Shirt!” intentionally?
Yes I do and you know that you believe that these guys were plants as well!
In fact I wouldn’t doubt that one of the guys was Bill himself!!
Well I thought for sure that Romney would win Iowa and that the poll numbers were just inflated due to last minute media hype of Huckabee. I even thought that Huckabee would even come in third…well folks I was wrong.
I was right when it came to my co-worker…who I hope is reading this right now…Thompson didn’t stand a chance. As of 9:51 PM CST good ‘ole Fred is in third (10 points behind Romney who came in second!!!) and is slowly loosing ground to the fourth place candidate, McCain.
New Hampshire is 5 days away…will the polls prove to be correct again and McCain win the state? God I hope not!
My first response is not a chance in hell. Especially when the Politico is reporting that there is a good possibility that Fred will soon be out of the race…yes, I know that Fred is denouncing this report and saying that it is not true but look at reality he is trailing (by a lot…10+ points) in every major poll.
If Fred comes in first it will be a miracle and his analysts should be praised…if he doesn’t come in first and his analysts truly do have numbers that show him winning Fred should fire every last one of them.
The first one that looks like an upside-down teardrop (or as kate put it ‘something in my kid's algebra book’) is Grenada.
The second country is Bulgaria!
This week I’ll give you all a relatively easy one to see if any of you are paying attention.
5 out of 10.
