Posts tagged Tim Pawlenty

Republican Convention: Day 3

362
9 months ago
by dcpetterson in

In an effort to mask their fis­cal irre­spon­si­bil­ity (or per­haps to high­light it), the Repub­li­can National Con­ven­tion has, not one, but two “debt clocks” on dis­play. One of them shows the cur­rent national debt, tick­ing ever upward. The other shows the amount of debt incurred since the time the Con­ven­tion was first gavelled to order on Mon­day afternoon.

Of course, nei­ther of these “clocks” are accu­rate (nor are they “clocks”, since they don’t tell time). They don’t show the actual expen­di­ture of dol­lars (i.e., when some agency of the fed­eral gov­ern­ment cuts a check, when the Pen­ta­gon awards a con­tract, when oil com­pa­nies get a kick­back, none of this causes these “clocks” to tick up). They only show a sort of aver­age per-​​second amount cal­cu­lated by tak­ing the year’s pro­jected deficit and divid­ing it by some­thing like 31,536,000 (the num­ber of sec­onds in a 365-​​day year; but this is a leap year, so per­haps they used 31,622,400).

High­light­ing the deficit and the debt is, one might think, a dan­ger­ous thing for Repub­li­cans to do, since the debt is almost entirely due to the actions of Repub­li­can admin­is­tra­tions. (more…)

The 2012 Republican Vice Presidential Field: July 23, 2012

64
10 months ago
by Monotreme in

The Ele­phants are back, smaller than ever.

For­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Willard “Mitt” Rom­ney, the pre­sump­tive Repub­li­can Pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee, is widely expected to announce his pick for Vice Pres­i­dent in the next five weeks, well before the Repub­li­can National Con­ven­tion in Tampa Bay, Florida, August 27–30.

Just as we’ve cov­ered the Stam­ped­ing Ele­phants in the past, let’s take a few moments to run down the poten­tial run­ning mates (ele­phant calves?) based on their Intrade per­cent­ages. Since there are 11 can­di­dates that are judged by Intraders to stand a bet­ter than one per­cent chance of secur­ing the VP nom­i­na­tion, I won’t give a biog­ra­phy on each one, but I will tell you some­thing about the top five, with a few com­ments about those ranked six to 11. (more…)

Fun and Ames

36
1 year ago
by mclever in
Campaign signs

Arriv­ing in Ames.

My Day at the Iowa Straw Poll—Getting There

The morn­ing is brisk for August in Iowa, with hints of rain adding an edge to the cool breeze, but that hasn’t damp­ened anyone’s spir­its in Ames. The bright mood is set by can­di­date signs that line the road all the way from Exit 146 to the park­ing lots at Iowa State Uni­ver­sity. Eschew­ing free bus rides offered by the can­di­dates, I drove myself to avoid unwanted bias. As I exit my car in a dis­tant lot on the far side of the foot­ball sta­dium, I can hear the jum­bled sounds of music, speeches, and cheers draw­ing me towards the fair, er…convention, er…I mean, Straw Poll event. The day is just get­ting started. Vot­ing won’t open until 10:00, but the most devoted sup­port­ers arrived at 9:00, and those who (like me) arrive after 9:30 find them­selves park­ing a long ways away. To ensure that no voter arrives with sore feet, sev­eral of the cam­paigns pro­vide golf carts to run cir­cuits between the far­thest lots and the can­di­dates’ tents. Hav­ing wisely worn com­fort­able shoes, I choose to walk. (more…)

Republicans take Ames in August 11 Debate

6
1 year ago
by filistro in

They’re ba-​​a-​​a-​​ack!

Tonight is next in the series of sched­uled debates for Repub­li­can pri­mary Pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates. This one is par­tic­u­larly sig­nif­i­cant because it tra­di­tion­ally marks the unof­fi­cial begin­ning of the real cam­paign. Also it is held in con­junc­tion with the qua­dren­nial Ames straw poll which, though not usu­ally a clear indi­ca­tion of the final stand­ings, does give both press and pun­dits (as well as com­bat­ants) an early peek at the orga­ni­za­tional strength of the var­i­ous cam­paigns. But mclever already told you about that on Mon­day, and we will have more on the straw poll later in the week, so for now, back to the debate…

Fox News is cospon­sor­ing this event with the Iowa GOP and the Wash­ing­ton Exam­iner. The debate begins at 8:00 PM CDT tonight at Iowa State Uni­ver­sity in Ames, two days before the straw poll. You should bear in mind that it will be broad­cast live on Fox News in all time zones. (more…)

Sorry, Ma’am

10
1 year ago
by filistro in

Michele, ma belle?

On July 7, Vin Weber, cam­paign adviser to Tim Paw­lenty, was forced to apol­o­gize for list­ing “sex appeal” among Michele Bachmann’s pos­i­tive attrib­utes. Now, I am as opposed to gen­der bias in pol­i­tics as any­body, but I really think this is ridicu­lous. Nobody sug­gested apolo­gies should be in order when Chris Christie was described as “macho,” or jokes were made about Scott Brown’s cen­ter­fold. Are women such del­i­cate blos­soms that any ref­er­ence to their fem­i­nin­ity or appear­ance is some­how off-​​limits?

I do believe there are sub­tle bound­aries that should not be crossed, like the sug­ges­tion in 2008 that Hillary Clin­ton delib­er­ately wore a low-​​cut blouse to draw atten­tion to her cleav­age. The dif­fer­ence there was not only refer­ring to her gen­der, but a sug­ges­tion that she was using gen­der to her own advan­tage — an accu­sa­tion that was entirely untrue.

On issues that are true, I think women who want to run with the boys need to man up…so to speak.

UPDATE: Bach­mann gives a classy response to Vin Weber.

 

Related arti­cles

Reëlection Watch: July 2011

19
1 year ago
by Michael Weiss in

This is the third in a series of arti­cles we pub­lish at least once every month between now and the gen­eral elec­tion. As we get closer to Novem­ber, 2012, the fre­quency will almost cer­tainly increase.

Each time, we take a look at the var­i­ous fac­tors that typ­i­cally influ­ence elec­tion out­comes, and com­pare them to the pre­vi­ous month.

Let’s look at how things are shak­ing out this month.

(more…)

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