2012 US General Election Discussions: Start to Finish

[Cin]

Gingrich -- and Race-Baiting -- Wins in South Carolina
Gingrich set about putting a black face on America's poor, and was rewarded with 40% of South Carolina's primary vote.

Marking a triumph for the return of unvarnished racism on the American political stage, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich handily won the South Carolina Republican presidential primary on Saturday, leaving in tatters the presumed inevitability of a Mitt Romney romp to the Republican presidential nomination. Finishing with 40 percent of the vote, Gingrich vanquished Romney, who garnered only 28 percent. Rick Santorum and Ron Paul managed 17 and 13 percent, respectively, while Herman Cain brought up the rear with 1 percent.

Until early this week, Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, was expected to win by a comfortable margin -- that is, until Gingrich topped the damage inflicted on Romney by the Newt-supporting superPAC, Winning Our Future, by establishing his supremacy in the race-baiting contest among all the GOP candidates in a Monday-night debate sponsored by Fox News. Subsequent polls showed Gingrich surging.

Gingrich then turbo-charged that surge by turning a negative into a positive: his second wife's charge that Gingrich had asked her for an "open marriage" while he was carrying on an affair with the woman who would become his third wife. Marianne Gingrich's accusation broke on Thursday, and CNN's John King opened that night's debate by asking Gingrich to respond. Gingrich responded with gusto, with a direct attack on King, whose question he called "close to despicable." The former speaker's attack on "media elites" won him a standing ovation from the Republican audience in the debate hall (and likely more than a few watching from home).

Newt the Destroyer

Gingrich came to South Carolina determined, at the very least, to destroy the candidacy of Romney, aided by "King of Bain," a video hit-piece by Winning Our Future, about Mitt Romney's tenure as CEO of Bain Capital, a player in the leveraged-buy-out frenzy that reshaped the landscape of U.S. business in the 1980s and '90s. The video depicts Romney as a heartless destroyer of the lives of working-class white people, all salt-of-the earth types who worked in the manufacturing companies bought up by Bain and sold for the sum of their parts.

In his concession speech on Saturday night, Romney took several swipes at Gingrich, suggesting the former speaker was in league with Obama, without ever calling Gingrich by name.

"Those who pick up the weapons of the left today will find them turned against us tomorrow," Romney said. "Let me be clear," he continued. "If Republican leaders want to join this president in demonizing success and disparaging conservative values then they're not going to be fit to be our nominee."

For his attacks on Romney's business practices, Gingrich was dubbed a kamikaze by the chattering classes, who chalked up his anti-Romney offensive to a desire to maim his opponent before his own presumably impending exit from the race -- mere retribution, it was believed, for the destruction of Gingrich's momentary surge in Iowa by hard-hitting ads run by the pro-Romney superPAC, Restore Our Future. But Gingrich, characteristically, had in mind something far more grand: winning the nomination.

Even as Gingrich and the Gingrich-friendly superPAC hammered at Romney -- with the help of $5 million pumped in by casino kingpin Sheldon Adelson -- he was honing his winning strategy for propelling his candidacy on the toxic fuel of racial resentment, a particularly potent brew with a black man occupying the White House.

And the Newt Shall Rise Again

After his loss to Romney and Santorum in Iowa, Gingrich apparently devised a plan that set his sights on South Carolina, where the Confederate flag still flies on the grounds of the state capitol. He knew New Hampshire was Romney's game, since, as the former governor of the state next door, Romney was nearly impossible to beat in the first-in-the-nation primary. But the national media were there, and Newt made the most of their presence, knowing his antics would be duly noted in the Palmetto state. So he deftly repackaged an off-hand, race-baiting remark made by Rick Santorum in Iowa, and dubbed Barack Obama the "food stamp president."

He set about putting a black face on all of America's poor, and then insinuating that these presumably dark-skinned dependents on public assistance arrived at their lowly station through laziness and the radical, redistributionist policies of America's first African-American president. Whenever he could pair his racist theories with attacks on other targets of the right -- say, labor unions and public employees -- he did. Child labor laws should be adjusted so that public school custodians could be replaced with poor kids -- who did, after all, need the money, he said, and an infusion of work ethic.

Then Gingrich said he would go into a place that would look, to those in South Carolina's Republican base with a fear of black people, like the lion's den.

"I said I was willing to go to the NAACP national convention, which most Republicans are unwilling to do, and talk about the importance of food stamps versus paychecks...," Gingrich said, as AlterNet reported, in response to a challenging question at a New Hampshire campaign stop. "Here's a Republican who is standing up, [willing to talk to] one of the most left-wing groups in America about how to help the people they represent."

Because, obviously, they are incapable of figuring that out on their own.

Doubling Down on the Race War

Then Gingrich got another of his big ideas. Why wait for the NAACP convention to roll around to collect television footage, for the edification of the racially prejudiced segment of the electorate he's targeting, of himself yelling directly at black people? Why not get that ball rolling in time for the South Carolina primary?

On January 14, exactly a week ahead of the South Carolina primary, Gingrich paid a visit to the Jones Memorial A.M.E. Church in Columbia, South Carolina, to face a largely African-American audience described by Politico as "hostile." There, he belligerently stuck to his guns in describing the nation's first black commander-in-chief as the "food stamp president" by repeating his false claim that, under Barack Obama, "more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history." (Actually, George W. Bush wins that honor, thanks to the economic crash his administration incited.) Gingrich's foray into enemy territory yielded local reporting that the white, right-wing base of the South Carolina G.O.P. could really soak up.

Monday night's debate offered Gingrich an opportunity to belittle a black person to his face on national television, when Fox News analyst Juan Williams challenged Gingrich on his comments about the poor, about African-Americans, and his description of Obama.

"Can't you see that this is viewed, at a minimum, as insulting to all Americans, but particularly to black Americans?" Williams asked.

"No. I don't see that," Gingrich replied.

As Williams continued, taking Gingrich to task for his fusing of food stamps, race and Obama in his stump speech, it became clear that Gingrich was winning the round when the audience in the debate hall loudly booed Williams. Gingrich repeated his false claim about Obama's responsibility for the numbers of people on the nutrition assistance program.

"Now," he continued, "I know among the politically correct, you’re not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable."

(Later in the week, Gingrich would claim the "idea of work" to be a "strange, distant concept" to Juan Williams.)

Later, in response to a question about the wisdom of pursing a confrontation with Iran, Gingrich gave an answer full of coded racism and Confederate hagiography, but one easily missed by those not steeped in American history or the legends of the South.

"South Carolina in the Revolutionary War had a young 13-year-old named Andrew Jackson. He was sabred by a British officer and wore a scar his whole life," Gingrich said. "Andrew Jackson had a pretty clear-cut idea about America’s enemies: Kill them."

As president, Andrew Jackson presided over the Trail of Tears, the genocidal removal of American Indians,who were deemed America's enemies, from their native lands. He also embraced a racial philosophy that reserved democracy only for white men, who were regarded as superior in every way to non-whites.

Clearing the Racist Path

While Gingrich was hardly the originator of the racial subtext to the GOP presidential contest, his unapologetic, bellicose articulation of racist tropes served to smoke out his competitors, who had, until that time, tried to blow the race whistle more subtly, or at least out of view of the mainstream media. (Santorum famously walked back from his Iowa remarks about black people and welfare by saying that he never used the phrase "black people," but rather the term "blah people.")

[UofMfan]

[Kobi]

The making of a post-post-partisan Presidency.

by Ryan Lizza
January 30, 2012

Hundreds of pages of internal White House memos show Obama grappling with the unpleasant choices of government.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...urrentPage=all

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Interesting and informative read.

[ButchBowWow]

Should we be happy that it was just a cat?




WASHINGTON -- The race for the Arkansas' third congressional district took a gruesome turn on Sunday, when the campaign manager for Democratic challenger Ken Aden came home and found his cat slaughtered with the word "liberal" painted on the corpse.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1224095.html

[AtLast]

I also posted this in the breaking News thread-


http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/20...te-in-2010.php

TPM2012
Mitt Romney Paid A 13.9% Effective Tax Rate In 2010

January 24, 2012, 12:30 AM 143124After being hounded by Democrats and Republicans for refusing to and then hedging about releasing his federal tax returns, Mitt Romney released his 2010 tax return Tuesday morning. They show that Romney paid an effective tax rate of 13.9% on $21.6 million in income.

Romney’s total wealth is estimated at $190 million to $250 million.
The returns also show that over 2010 and 2011 Romney donated more money to charity, $7 million, than he will pay in taxes, much of that going to the Mormon church. The campaign stressed that Romney’s low tax rate was based on the fact that much of his income comes from 15% tax rate on capital gains, rather than the 35% rate on earned income as well as charitable deductions. They also note that much of the money comes from interest from Romney’s blind trust.

Key Takeaways From Romney’s Tax Returns
—Mitt Romney paid a 13.9 percent tax rate on $21.6 million in income last year.

—Most of the income came from dividends and interest on investments, which are taxed at a much lower rate.
—Romney raked in America’s median adjusted gross income of $33,048 in “less than a day,” Bloomberg notes. His income over a one-week span puts him in the top 1 percent of annual earners.—Romney, who files jointly with his wife Ann, expects to pay a 15.4 percent rate on $20.9 million in income this year.

—His campaign said he had $7.4 million in carried interest last year; this year the figure is $5.5 million.

—Romney contributed $7 million in charitable donations in the last two years, at least $4.1 million of which was to the Mormon Church.Sahil Kapur contributed to this post.

******

Yanno- "carried interest means he defers paying any tax on millions for years- one of those "loopholes" for the 1%!

Tweet from ThinkProgress-

Romney's return that reveals his Swiss bank account is the "good' return. He won't release previous years.

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by AtLast

I also posted this in the breaking News thread-


http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/20...te-in-2010.php

TPM2012
Mitt Romney Paid A 13.9% Effective Tax Rate In 2010

January 24, 2012, 12:30 AM 143124After being hounded by Democrats and Republicans for refusing to and then hedging about releasing his federal tax returns, Mitt Romney released his 2010 tax return Tuesday morning. They show that Romney paid an effective tax rate of 13.9% on $21.6 million in income.

Romney’s total wealth is estimated at $190 million to $250 million.
The returns also show that over 2010 and 2011 Romney donated more money to charity, $7 million, than he will pay in taxes, much of that going to the Mormon church. The campaign stressed that Romney’s low tax rate was based on the fact that much of his income comes from 15% tax rate on capital gains, rather than the 35% rate on earned income as well as charitable deductions. They also note that much of the money comes from interest from Romney’s blind trust.

Key Takeaways From Romney’s Tax Returns
—Mitt Romney paid a 13.9 percent tax rate on $21.6 million in income last year.

—Most of the income came from dividends and interest on investments, which are taxed at a much lower rate.
—Romney raked in America’s median adjusted gross income of $33,048 in “less than a day,” Bloomberg notes. His income over a one-week span puts him in the top 1 percent of annual earners.—Romney, who files jointly with his wife Ann, expects to pay a 15.4 percent rate on $20.9 million in income this year.

—His campaign said he had $7.4 million in carried interest last year; this year the figure is $5.5 million.

—Romney contributed $7 million in charitable donations in the last two years, at least $4.1 million of which was to the Mormon Church.Sahil Kapur contributed to this post.

******

Yanno- "carried interest means he defers paying any tax on millions for years- one of those "loopholes" for the 1%!

Tweet from ThinkProgress-

Romney's return that reveals his Swiss bank account is the "good' return. He won't release previous years.

Much of his monies are in the Caymans and we have no idea how much that is, and he pays a total of 0% on those accounts. We need to change our tax laws to close these loopholes.

[theoddz]

Well, we all know how ridiculous a Newt Gingrich Presidential campaign would be. Come to think of it, none of the current list of GOP hopefuls would look much better, but Newtie's would really be over the top.

Lookie what I found!!!!

It reads almost like a laundry list of sin and is at least three times more entertaining!!!

http://www.realchange.org/gingrich.htm#draft

I hope you all find it as entertaining as I did.

He hasn't a hope in hell, especially if he actually gets a GOP nomination.

Here's some of his and the people who have known him's quote's:

Quotes:

"We had oral sex. He prefers that modus operandi because then he can say, 'I never slept with her.'" - Anne Manning (who was also married at the time.)

"We would have won in 1974 if we could have kept him out of the office, screwing her [a young volunteer] on the desk." - Dot Crews, his campaign scheduler at the time

[In the book] "Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them", [I] "found frightening pieces that related to my own life." - Newt.

"I think you can write a psychological profile of me that says I found a way to immerse my insecurities in a cause large enough to justify whatever I wanted it to." - Newt, speaking to Gail Sheehy.

"She isn't young enough or pretty enough to be the President's wife. And besides, she has cancer." - Newt, on his first wife.

"He treats me really nicely, buys me all these ices. Dolce & Gabbana, Fendi and that Donna, Karan, he be sharin' All that money got me wearin'" -- Callista? No wait, that's Fergie, "My Humps"

"I don't want him to be president and I don't think he should be." - Newt's second wife Marianne.

“She [Callista] is the single most self-centered person I’ve run into in politics—it’s all about her. They do these movies together, and she does a word count: she has to have the same number of words on camera as he does or they have to reshoot. ...And Callista did not want him to run for President. That’s why he had to buy her so much damn jewelry.” - an unnamed "former strategist." Will Rogers, Newt's ex-Iowa strategist has denied it was him.

"If the country today were to move to the left, Newt would sense it before it started happening and lead the way." - Dot Crews, his campaign scheduler throughout the 1970s.

"It doesn't matter what I do. People need to hear what I have to say. There's no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn't matter what I live." - Newt.
________________________

You know, it is a national insult to have someone like Newt Gingrich even throw his hat in the ring and then come within a hair's breadth of getting a major political nomination to run for the highest office in the land. How does THAT happen??? How does he get even ONE vote from any self respecting, decent American, let alone human being????

~Theo~