Posts tagged Mitt Romney

The First Scandal of 2016

13
1 week ago
by dcpetterson in

Karl Rove, still in the game

The 2016 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign has def­i­nitely started. No can­di­dates have announced them­selves, but the most likely play­ers are clearly evi­dent. For the Democ­rats, most spec­u­la­tion has cen­tered around two vet­eran politi­cians: for­mer Sen­a­tor and for­mer Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton, and Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden. On the Repub­li­can side stands a bevy of brash young Turks, each try­ing to out-​​do the oth­ers for the most pos­si­ble cam­era time. You can tell which side is already run­ning scared, and which oppos­ing can­di­date is most feared. Fox “News” and Karl Rove (des­per­ate to remain a player after back­ing so many losers in 2012) have already cre­ated a campaign-​​style attack ad.

The attacks on Sec­re­tary Clin­ton con­sist of innu­endo and spec­u­la­tion fueled by hear­ings in the House Over­sight Com­mit­tee chaired by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dar­rell Issa (R-​​Vista, CA). Those hear­ings were in regard to a dif­fer­ent attack — the Sep­tem­ber, 2012, assault on the Amer­i­can diplo­matic post in Beng­hazi, Libya, an action which resulted in the deaths of Christo­pher Stevens (then America’s ambas­sador to Libya) and three other staffers. Repub­li­cans have already taken mul­ti­ple bites off this apple, includ­ing non-​​inhaling for­mer Gov­er­nor Mitt Romney’s clumsy and inef­fec­tive macho blus­ter­ing that began while the event was still under way; then a sen­sa­tion­al­ist first set of Con­gres­sional hear­ings in Jan­u­ary; and then the scut­tling of Susan Rice’s nom­i­na­tion for the post of Sec­re­tary of State. In no case was any wrong­do­ing revealed, only Repub­li­can frus­tra­tion at the Obama Administration’s insuf­fi­ciently pruri­ent use of the word “terrorism.”

Was any­thing sub­stan­tial dredged up in the most recent fish­ing expe­di­tion? Not accord­ing Karl Rove. Or Dar­rell Issa. (more…)

Math Beat Ideology

33
4 months ago
by Michael Weiss in

This year, 2012, was the year that math beat ide­ol­ogy. It was a defin­i­tive vic­tory, too; just look at some of the battlegrounds.

Early in the year, the last of the Repub­li­can ide­o­logues fell away to leave Mitt Rom­ney as the lone Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date. The exit polls in the var­i­ous pri­mary elec­tions were con­sis­tent. Peo­ple voted for Rom­ney, not because they thought he was the best ide­o­log­i­cal match, but because he had the best shot at beat­ing Pres­i­dent Barack Obama. All of the oth­ers fell away, despite their stricter adher­ence to con­ser­v­a­tive ide­ol­ogy. Repub­li­cans voted for Rom­ney because of math, not ide­ol­ogy. (more…)

Poopyheads!

17
5 months ago
by filistro in

Imme­di­ately after the recent elec­tion, Grover Norquist famously said that Barack Obama won reëlec­tion by por­tray­ing Mitt Rom­ney as a “poopy­head”. This rather odd remark caused some hilar­ity among politics-​​watchers, but it did tend to shine a spot­light on the issue of polit­i­cal name-​​calling. It also led to the usual hand-​​wringing about the “lack of civil­ity” and how our elec­tion cam­paigns have become “dirt­ier than they’ve ever been in history.”

Polit­i­cal debate, circa 1800

Before we get into this dis­cus­sion, let’s save some time by stip­u­lat­ing up front that we all do it to each other; right, left and cen­ter, and we always have. Name-​​calling and insults may have sur­vived to the present day, but they are an old and not-​​so-​​honorable com­po­nent of the fab­u­lous sport­ing pur­suit we know as pol­i­tics. If you don’t believe me, watch this clip that recalls some of the lan­guage used by politi­cians back in the 1800s. (Even if you do believe me, watch it any­how, right to the end. It’s less than two min­utes long and really quite wonderful.)

Some other favorite polit­i­cal insults:  (more…)

Election Watch: Election Day

109
6 months ago
by Michael Weiss in ,

Here we are, at the end of the road for so many cam­paigns. And it’s the time when I deliver my final predictions.

As with Sat­ur­day, I’m start­ing with early vot­ing. Like Sat­ur­day, this edi­tion includes a sec­tion on the guber­na­to­r­ial races. After that, I delve into the Sen­ate, fol­lowed by the Pres­i­den­tial race. I’m drop­ping the other exter­nal fac­tors, as they should all be priced into the polls by now.

That said, Hur­ri­cane Sandy could have an impact on turnout. But with no prece­dent upon which to draw, it’s anybody’s guess as to what the impact will be.

(more…)

Romney’s Tax Plan: You Can’t Get There from Here

11
6 months ago
by Logarchism.com in

Editor’s note: PWS con­tributed this fol­lowup arti­cle to his ear­lier one. We love receiv­ing and pub­lish­ing your sub­mis­sions, as it gives an oppor­tu­nity for a broader spec­trum of views to be explored in depth. Please, keep them coming.

Reed Davis posted an arti­cle on Hal­loween with juicy links to the “six stud­ies” quoted by Paul Ryan as sup­port­ing the Rom­ney tax plan, and even juicier links to rebut­tals and counter-​​rebuttals. I had already writ­ten up a dis­cus­sion of most of these papers, so at the risk of some dupli­ca­tion, I’m going to post it here.

As much as pos­si­ble, I’m work­ing with pro­jec­tions that the Tax Pol­icy Cen­ter would have used, rather than Har­vey Rosen’s 2009 SOI. I pre­fer these because 2009 is already three years old, and was an anom­alous year because of the eco­nomic slow­down. Where pos­si­ble I have links to under­ly­ing doc­u­ments.  (more…)

The Romney Plan: Winners and Losers

57
6 months ago
by Logarchism.com in

The Rom­ney tax plan uses some funny math

Editor’s note: We always wel­come arti­cle sub­mis­sions from our read­ers. Today’s con­tri­bu­tion comes from PWS.

The Rom­ney tax plan has stim­u­lated the sharpest and most enter­tain­ing exchanges among aca­d­e­mics and pol­icy wonks. Both camps, Obama and Rom­ney, are able to use the very same papers to prove that the plan raises taxes on the mid­dle class, or doesn’t, increases growth, or doesn’t, achieves rev­enue neu­tral­ity, or doesn’t. I’m sur­prised no one’s claimed it’ll bring Mid­dle East peace, or won’t.

I can’t do jus­tice to the debate in a sin­gle post, so in this one I’ll look at the Rom­ney Tax plan and the first study that eval­u­ated it, from the Tax Pol­icy Cen­ter at the Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion.  (more…)

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