Monthly Archives: January 2012

The Huntsman Girls, tonight on Pub Politics

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I emailed Wesley yesterday to let him know I would be available if he needed me this week or next on Pub Politics (which would me my unparalleled eighth appearance on the show). He said he’s let me know if he needed me.

Since then, he’s been distracted by the demise of the candidacy for which he was working.

But that didn’t prevent him from lining up a show with considerably more appeal that I could bring:

Did you know that the human body produces its own supply of alcohol naturally on a continuous basis, 24 hours a day, seven days a week? Did you know that the world’s oldest known recipe is for beer?

And did you know that the Huntsman Girls are going to be our special guests this week on Pub Politics? Meet Wes and Phil and the girls at Pearlz Oyster Bar in the Vista this Thursday, January 5 at our usual time, 6pm. We’ll chat politics and partying to celebrate Phil’s birthday.

The Huntsman girls – Mary Anne, Liddy, and Abby – the eldest three children of presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman are most notable for their recent viral YouTube videos. Mary Anne, 26, is a concert pianist and works on the fundraising side of her father’s campaign, Abby, 25, works in broadcasting and handles media with the campaign, and  Liddy, 23, is a recent college grad recruiting young voters.

You can follow them on twitter @Jon2012Girls or check out their YouTube videos where they mock a Herman Cain ad or offer up their own rendition of a popular Justin Timberlake song.

McCain endorses former rival Romney

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Mitt Romney got a nice boost on his way to being the winner of the New Hampshire primary, if not the nomination:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, endorsed former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for the 2012 Republican nomination in New Hampshire on Wednesday.

The endorsement brings two old rivals together, and marks a potentially crucial boost for Romney coming off a narrow eight-vote victory in the Iowa caucuses Tuesday night.

McCain, who won the New Hampshire primaries in both 2000 and 2008, said he wanted to “make sure we make Mitt Romney the next president of the United States of America.”

“New Hampshire is the state that will catapult him to victory in a very short period of time,” McCain said after being introduced by Romney. “That’s why I’m here.”…

So now we have a united front between last election’s standard-bearer and the candidate who was his main rival by about this point in the campaign in ’08.

This is particularly interesting in light of the fact that last time, Romney was the last hope of Jim DeMint and others on the party’s right wing as they tried to stop McCain, seen as the candidate of moderation and bipartisanship. This time, Romney is the one all the right-wingers want an alternative to. Go figure. I guess it’s just another testament to Romney’s legendary, um, flexibility.

I wish I’d been there for the announcement. I would have asked McCain whether he knows where the Navy went…

Hey, what happened to the U.S. Pacific Fleet?

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Ahoy, there! Where did the Navy go?

This morning, I was reading a piece on the front page of The Wall Street Journal about the quiet arm-wrestling match going on between the United States and China over whether we Yanks will maintain naval supremacy in the Pacific (it was a good piece; too bad that WSJ is hiding it behind a pay wall).

That caused me to go take another look at disturbing satellite imagery I saw a day or two ago. Reading Black Ocean, I went to Google Maps just to remind myself of the lay of the land around Pearl Harbor (I used to be able to look down on it from my backyard, which was higher than the roof of the neighbor behind us in Foster Village — you can almost see it at the far left of this photo).

And I’m scrolling around, remembering things that happened here and there — and being surprise to find a bridge to Ford Island (in my day, you had to get there by ferry), when suddenly I realize that something is missing — namely, the United States Navy.

I looked at the hard wharf across the street from the tennis courts that John McCain’s father threw me off of (yes, that really happened), and was shocked. Last time I was there (admittedly, 40 years ago), a glance in that direction would show a tangle of antennae and superstructures of warships, packed along the wharf. Now… nothing. Not one ship.

This, apparently, is it -- a few ships tucked away in Middle Loch.

I started looking everywhere, and finally found about 11 ships tucked away over in Middle Loch, at anchor in twos (eerily like the way the battleships were moored on the opposite side of Ford Island on Dec. 7, 1941). What are they doing there? Hiding from the Chinese?

And that was it, aside from one surface ship and one sub I found over on the side where the main base is. Or was.

I knew the Navy had shrunk since the Cold War, but this was like some kind of post-apocalytic sci-fi thing. Like they’d all just disappeared.

No wonder Iran thinks it can close the Strait of Hormuz, if our bench has gotten this thin…

Maybe Burl can enlighten us… tell us the fleet was out conducting exercises or something that day…

Oh, and you know what else? Maybe, instead of crazy talk about how Obamacare endangers “the very survival of the United States,” some of these people running for president should address the issue of whatever happened to our Navy…

At the very bottom edge of the image, nearly halfway across coming from the left, you see the tennis courts where I had my run-in with Admiral McCain. Across the street should be a tangle of warships moored one or two deep. But there's nothing...

Look out, SC! You’ve been chosen as site of the GOP Götterdämmerung

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Perry. Rick Perry...

Yikes! I didn’t expect this. Perry just faked everybody out. After sounding (and looking) like a loser last night, and mumbling about going home to lick his wounds and reassess (with New Hampshire a week away), suddenly Rick Perry tweeted this out:

And the next leg of the marathon is the Palmetto State…Here we come South Carolina!!!

Oh, and the above picture was included with the Tweet. I think he’s trying to give a James Bond impression. Like he just climbed out of that pond, and he’s going to take off that wetsuit-looking thing and have a tux on underneath or something.

Here’s what National Journal is reporting:

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa –- Just hours after announcing via Twitter that he would be continuing his presidential bid in South Carolina, Texas Gov. Rick Perry blasted Iowa’s caucus process and blamed it for his fifth-place finish.

“This is a quirky place, a quirky process to say the least, and we’re going to go into places where they have actual primaries and there are going to be real Republicans voting,” he told reporters. “Not that there aren’t real Republicans here in Iowa, but the fact it is was a pretty loosey-goosey process and you had a ton of people who were there that admitted they were Democrats voting in the caucuses last night.”

Sshhh! Don’t anybody tell the governor that we have open primaries here, and don’t register by party! Let it be a surprise!

More from National Journal:

The governor announced that he would be returning to Austin on Tuesday night to reevaluate his campaign after getting only 10 percent in the Iowa contest. But barely 12 hours later, he arrived at a final decision while on a run through Raccoon Creek Park. “And the next leg of the marathon is the Palmetto State … Here we come South Carolina!!!,” he  tweeted, alerting people to the decision…

Though Perry declined to elaborate exactly what that path forward is, South Carolina is rich in both evangelical voters and veterans — two key groups for Perry. He said he felt “comfortable” with the state, its people and their values…

What does it all mean, Mr. Natural? What will a last-ditch, back-from-the-dead Alamo-style stand by Perry look like on our turf — with Romney anxious to sew it up, Santorum eager to prove Iowa was no fluke, and Gingrich desperate to save what’s left of his candidacy?

I think this is where the GOP Armageddon will take place. Everybody (maybe even Huntsman) assumes that Romney will win N.H., and then the real free-for-all happens here.

Fasten your seat belts, folks.

So long, Michele Bachmann…

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OK, now that she’s made her exit speech, we are reminded of two things:

  1. Just how useless the Iowa Straw Poll is — she mentioned having won it — as if we didn’t already know.
  2. That the country is probably better off without her leadership.

I base the latter on her hyperbolic explanation of why she ran. She explained that Obamacare “endangered the very survival of the United States of America.”

So, in our lifetime, that makes two existential threats to our country: The Soviet Union, and a health care plan that is a timid, pale shadow of that provided in practically every other advanced nation in the world.

You know, I’m thinking it would be great if the GOP would now concentrate on finding a nominee who knows what a real threat is. Because the most critical part of the job description is, after all, commander in chief. Maybe that process began in Iowa last night.

The painting to which the ex-candidate referred: "Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States," by Howard Chandler Christy.

With a Mormon and a Catholic leading the pack, let’s pause for a few words from John F. Kennedy

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On the morning after the photo-finish in Iowa, The New Yorker is waxing deeply philosophical:

What will be more telling, perhaps, is how the Republican candidates, in the primaries and caucuses to come, address the ideals and most personal beliefs of others. A party whose base has increasingly been oriented around the interests of politicized evangelism finds itself with a tie between a Mormon and a Catholic. (The “entrance polls” in Iowa, like many others so far, showed one set of numbers for those identifying themselves as “evangelical or born again,” and one set for those who do not.) One has been left to wonder how much of a factor Romney’s religion has been in his troubles with Republican voters. (They have so many non-sectarian reasons to suspect him that it’s hard to tease out.) In the 2008 election, as Hendrik Hertzberg noted at the time, Romney attempted to ingratiate himself by drawing a circle around the followers of organized religions generally, while casting aspersions on those who led a secular life. Santorum, meanwhile, has made religious beliefs about matters such as family planning and romantic relationships cornerstones of his political program.

We are more than a half century removed from John F. Kennedy’s campaign to be the first Catholic President. In a speech that he felt he needed to give, at the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, he said,

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew—or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist.

Watching his speech on the subject now, one is struck not only by his words but by the expressions on the faces of the people who are listening—really listening, it appears, to words thoughtfully spoken…

This has not been the spirit of the speakers or the audience in the dozen or so debates so far. What will we see in the six scheduled for January alone, not to mention the ads that will air in the weeks and months ahead? What will the candidates, and their surrogates, have to say about each others’ religions? Or about people who have no religion at all, and—one hopes this won’t need to be said—are no less faithful citizens for it? (Kennedy, in a crucial phrase, spoke of the right to attend “or not attend” the church of one’s choice.)…

$1.65 per vote vs. $113 per vote

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The first figure is what Rick Santorum spent; the second reflects the Mitt Romney outlay. Michael Li of Texas figured it this way, about the time most of the votes were in last night:

Wow. Paid media $/vote so far: Santorum $1.65, Bachmann $8, Romney $113.07, Gingrich $139 Paul $227, Perry $817.

If those numbers are right, it sounds to me like the Texans particularly got ripped off, especially Perry.

But we should keep the two numbers in the headline above in mind as we go into upcoming contests in which Romney is assumed to have an advantage because of his bigger warchest.

Frankly, I still think that stands him in good stead. Santorum’s had a long time to do retail politics in Iowa, he’s going to need money to build on this momentum in places where he is less organized.

Or will he? There’s always the wild card of free media, of which he will be getting a lot. Of course, that can cut both ways. Up to now, he’s been scrutinized no more deeply than his sweater vests…

Should Santorum skip N.H., head straight here?

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That was the buzz at the Big Round Table at the Capital City Club this morning, fed by Preston Grisham, lobbyist and veteran of SC GOP campaigns. This is where the more fertile ground is, and maybe he could get up and running fast enough here, whereas there’s no time left in New Hampshire, with the primary six days off.

It makes sense.

Interestingly, the Republican Grisham was thinking along the same lines as progressive columnist E.J. Dionne, who was already speculating yesterday morning that a win in Iowa positioned Santorum particularly well in South Carolina.

Of course, mix into that the fact that Gingrich is preparing for a serious stand here, and you’ve got a battle.

Also… and I probably need to deal with this in a separate post… I’ve got the feeling that Romney might sew it up here. I need to give Warren Tompkins a call…

What IS going on today, indeed?

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Wesley Donehue, who yesterday was as harried as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, seemed to have suddenly downshifted this morning, Tweeting at 8:35 a.m.:

So, what’s going today?

As it happened, I was wondering the same thing myself.

Wesley, you see, is working with the Michele Bachmann campaign, at least for the moment.

Rep. Bachmann has scheduled a press conference in Des Moines for 11 our time, and speculation is that she will drop out of the race — seeing as how Iowa was a place where she really needed to do well (remember the hometown bit?), and she came in 6th. A distant 6th, with only 5 percent of the vote.

She’s already cancelled a planned trip to SC, which I was asking Wesley about yesterday.

Meanwhile, Rick Perry is also reassessing. And the tone in which he said so pretty much said “loser,” precluding his proceeding onward with any of the necessary fire that his campaign has not had since, what, August?

Anyway, I wish the best to Wesley, whatever happens next.

In the Des Moines Register tonight, Obama has the loudest voice

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I’ve been checking the Des Moines Register website tonight, and I can’t help being struck by the way Obama bought up the front-page ad space so as to dominate coverage of the Republican caucuses tonight. No matter who is momentarily ahead as Paul, Romney and Santorum vie to break out of a tie, Obama’s message plays bigger than anything else, all night.

Interesting…

Virtual Front Page, Tuesday, January 3, 2012

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Here’s what’s available to us at this hour:

  1. Iran warns U.S. Navy: Stay out of Persian Gulf (WashPost) — Which has got the Navy like, shaking with fear, I’m sure. Nevertheless, this bears watching.
  2. Iran tensions send oil prices soaring (The Guardian) — In case you didn’t care before, maybe you care now…
  3. It’s caucus day, and the spotlight is on Romney (WashPost) — Yeah, everybody’s talking about it, but I can’t really lead with this, because it hasn’t happened yet. Nothing to tell…
  4. Gingrich Calls Romney a Liar (NYT) — … nothing you’d want your children paying attention to, anyway.
  5. Dow Rings In 179-Point Gain (WSJ) — Nice start to the year. Not to wish ill on the Republican field or anything, but let’s hope the trend continues…
  6. Judge: Black church rightful owner of KKK store (AP) — In a related development, Man bites Dog.

Drat! The Professor was here, and I missed him!

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That is to say, he was “here” if you define “here” as “in this country.” I learned that obliquely this morning, from this Tweet:

So very lovely to come back from the states and find nearly all of my twitter friends talking about the weather. #comforting #likeanicesoup.

What?!? He was on this side of the pond, and I missed him? Confound the luck. It’s enough to make a chap want to don his fighting trousers.

I wrote to the Professor to express my dismay in the strongest terms, and by way of consolation he replied,

@BradWarthen I’ll be in San francisco at the end of january if that’s any help old chap. #edwardianball

Well, that would be just as lovely as a cup of the brown stuff, if not for the fact that this country has grown a bit since we were colonies (the news may not have traveled back to the Old World as yet), and S.F. is hardly nearer than Brighton…

For those of you not among the cognoscenti, Professor Elemental (known to his particular friends as Paul Alborough), is the master of Chap-hop, a sort of cultural offshoot of the Steampunk sensibility.

He’s also one of my highly valued celebrity followers on Twitter, along with the inimitable Adam Baldwin. I feel honored by this, naturally, even though he does follow 27,389 others. (There are those who might call him indiscriminate, but if they do, I’m certain that the Professor will demand satisfaction. Perhaps he’ll ask me to be his second, if the other 27,389 are busy.)

But I still would very much like to see his act in person. So here’s hoping that next time he comes to the East Coast, he’s not booked by the same agents who chose where “Tinker, Tailor” would be screened…

Got a nice note from E.J. Dionne this morning

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I appreciated E.J. taking the time to point something out to me...

So we’re entering the stage at which national media are about to start paying attention to what is said in South Carolina. So it is that I got a note from E.J. Dionne this morning. After praising this “poetic” passage in my blog earlier: “What fools the calendar doth make of us, even when we know better.”

… he went on to say,

OK, but still, does it have any impact? Huck wouldn’t have come within 3 points of McCain without Iowa — and Fred Thompson probably made the difference.
But you are right about our being fools. Original sin and all that.
Warmest EJ

He’s got a point. Especially about the Original Sin thing. But then, E.J.’s a smart guy. And a Catholic.

Yes, if Santorum wins Iowa, this is fertile territory for him. Being a values guy and all.

As for Iowa… My dismissive statements may be based in what I wish were true. As in, “Iowa shouldn’t matter, so I’ll say it doesn’t.” I wrote a column urging everyone to ignore Iowa four years ago. Then, when Obama won there, I started hoping it DID mean something — only to see him get body-slammed in N.H.

As I’ve mentioned here before, my baptism in national politics came when I covered Howard Baker in Iowa in 1980, for my Tennessee newspaper. Since I was covering it, Iowa took on  disproportionate importance in my mind. When Reagan lost there, I was eager to pronounce his candidacy over. We know how that turned out. My prejudice also arises from the fact that, as a voter, I am barred from participating in a caucus. I’d have the same problem, of course, in a primary state with party registration. Fortunately, we don’t have that here in SC, and our primaries are open.

Huntsman ad: “We are getting screwed…”

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Kudos to Jon Huntsman for being the first GOP candidate to break out of the prison of the trite and poorly worded, and give us an ad that says something, and does it with a bit of a bite.

And I’m not just saying that because he uses the word “screwed” in mixed company.

I’m saying it because he actually tells you something about himself in a way that you might take note, and remember.

I don’t know if I’d go so far as Henry McMaster in praising it:

I miss Ronald Reagan.  I served as his first US Attorney.

We all wish he would appear out of the cornfield in a “Field of Dreams” and be our nominee for President.

But right now – there is only one true Reagan Republican in the race, a leader who worked for Ronald Reagan and has proven himself over the years to be a strong, consistent conservative, with the best record as a chief executive creating jobs, cutting taxes and balancing budgets at the state level.

That is my good friend Jon Huntsman.

I hope you’ll take a moment to watch Jon’s latest TV ad. It truly is a wake up call for America.

Our nation is deep in debt.  And we’ve lost trust in government to solve problems.

I believe Jon Huntsman is the leader we need to repair both the economic deficit and the deficit of trust that has afflicted our country.

Jon has never been a flip-flopper or an opportunist.  He has always been consistently pro-life and pro-family.  As Governor of Utah, he led the nation in creating jobs, cutting taxes and stimulating real economic growth.

Jon Huntsman is the most extraordinary Governor I’ve seen since Carroll Campbell. And he’s also the only one in the presidential race with foreign policy experience as a United States Ambassador to both Singapore and China.  The world we live in is far too dangerous to pick another president with no foreign policy experience.

I ask you as a friend, as a South Carolinian, a father and an American to join me in restoring trust, dignity, and integrity in Washington, DC by supporting Jon Huntsman for President.

Peggy and I wish you and your family a very happy, healthy and blessed 2012.

Sincerely,
Henry McMaster

I’m not sure this is a “wake-up call for America.” It’s more like a “get up briefly and let the dog out” call. But at least you don’t sleep soundly through it, and that’s something.

Compared to what it’s up against, this ad deserves brief applause, at the minimum.

And now, a few words from the Grownup Party

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The ATV discussion caused me to invoke the Grownup Party (which was my third effort to start my own party, after the UnParty and the Energy Party), which caused me to go back and reread the party’s founding document, and I think this passage is always good to keep in mind:

Which brings us to something else about Grownups — they understand that in America, the government is us, rather than being some menacing thing out there, and that we’re very fortunate to live in this country at this time rather than in Russia under the czars — or under Vladimir Putin, for that matter. And we’re especially fortunate not to live in a place where there is no government, such as Somalia under the warlords.
When the government does something we don’t like — which is pretty often, political immaturity being rampant — we don’t stamp our feet and talk about taking our ball (or  taxes, or whatever) and going home. Instead, we take responsibility for it, and try to bring it along. Yes, it’s a thankless task, like picking up after one’s children, or explaining to them why they can’t stay out late with their friends. But someone has to do it.
The task may seem hopeless as well — but only to the sort who gives up. Grownups know they don’t have that option, so they keep putting forth ideas that make sense, day after day, just like Daddy  going to work…

Amen to that. The Founder of the Grownup Party knows what he’s on about…

There’s still time left to get your greens ground

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We didn’t wait for the liturgically correct date, but went ahead and got rid of our Christmas tree on the 8th day, because we had the time for the chore then.

And at least we did the environmentally correct thing and took it to Saxe Gotha Presbyterian Church, which is one of the locations in the Midlands for the Grinding of the Greens project.

You can still drop off your tree, wreaths and what have you by Jan. 13, after which:

Free mulch from the recycled Christmas trees will be available to the public on Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012 at Seven Oaks Park and the Clemson Institute for Economic & Community Development from 9 a.m. until the mulch runs out.

Which is cool, I think.

That's mine on the left, with the hole in the base. Goodbye, tree...

Santorum tries to ‘look older’ — you know, like Jimmy Olsen, cub reporter

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I was somewhat taken aback this morning when I read this:

We thought Rick Santorum’s sweater vests were just a regular old-fashion statement. Turns out, they’re so much more. Santorum explained to Laura Ingraham on Monday that he likes to wear the sleeveless numbers because they make him look “a little older.”

Said Ingraham, “When I think of sweaters I think of Jimmy Carter, I think of Lamar Alexander, so all I’m saying Rick, with how you and I are so aligned on social issues and world view, but I’ve got to take issue with you on the sweater vest.”

“Is it geek chic? What is it?” Ingraham pressed.

The 2012 candidate explained that saying yes to the vests has a lot to do with looking more like an elder statesman. Santorum, 53, pointed out that a man in Iowa guessed he was 32…

So he’s trying to look older? You mean, like Jimmy Olsen, cub reporter? Jimmy was often portrayed with a sweater vest back in DC’s Silver Age, and I see evidence, both here and here, that he hasn’t lost the look in his latter-day manifestations, either.

Nothing against sweater vests, mind you. Below, you can see the one I’m wearing today. Unfortunately, I’m not going the fully Jimmy today — no bow tie — on account of all my shirts being too tight in the collar all of a sudden. I think I was exposed to some kind of special Kryptonite over the holidays or something. More on that later, though…

Back to Santorum: Does it tell us something that someone who presumes to ask us to elect him president looks so much like a kid that the Jimmy Olsen look is a step up in gravitas? By the way, if you want to look avuncular, you need a long-sleeved cardigan, not a sweater vest. Do I have to explain everything to these people?

In the views of some of my cartoonist friends…

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When I received the above cartoon from Bill Day, it caused me to go look for Robert Ariail‘s latest on the subject (more or less).

There’s an interesting area of agreement there — interesting because, given their political predilections, Bill would welcome the idea of the GOP being led into obsolescence, while the idea of Obama being the beneficiary would be distressing to Robert.

Politics aside, I hope this New Year will be a great one for both of these guys. Which reminds me: It’s past time Robert and I got together again at Yesterday’s. I need to find out when he’ll be in town…

Apparently there’s ennui in Iowa, as well

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Over the last couple of months, I’ve mentioned on numerous occasions that I’m perceiving a certain… lack of enthusiasm… over the GOP presidential nominating process in South Carolina this year.

Today, at the very height of hoopla in that neck of the woods, I see an indication that there is a similar dearth of excitement in Iowa (thanks to Andrew Sullivan for bringing this Philip Klein piece to my attention):

Those following the Iowa caucuses from home, hearing a steady stream of reports such as this about “packed rooms” that are “standing room only” with people still waiting outside, may be getting the impression that there’s a groundswell of enthusiasm for this year’s candidates that will drive turnout for the caucuses to stratospheric levels.

But don’t be fooled. The truth is that the venues candidates are holding events at this year are much smaller than in 2008, back when some candidates were filling large ballrooms or even small arenas. When going into a Barack Obama event in 2008, it wouldn’t be unusual have to get there early and still park a five or 10 minute walk away from the actual rally site, only to come into a massive venue where crowds in the thousands were going wild. Even on the Republican side, Mike Huckabee was filling larger venues.

Yet yesterday, reporters, photograhers and a few actual patrons were packed into a tiny diner at a Mitt Romney event in Atlantic, Iowa. True, later that evening, he attracted hundreds to a town hall-style building in Council Bluffs, but it was still a relatively small venue.

On Saturday, Newt Gingrich squeezed people into a diner in Council Bluffs and a small corner of a Coca Cola bottling factory in Atlantic.

At the same time, the audiences seem a lot more subdued than in 2008 — less shouting and sign waving….

Clever of the candidates’ handlers to make it look like they’re in demand by shrinking the venues. But I’m grateful to hear that this certain lack of vitality is not just a South Carolina phenomenon — and even more importantly, not in my imagination.

The causes? I haven’t sorted that out entirely, but among the causes I suspect are lack of enchantment with the field, an ongoing identity crisis in the GOP (are they about fiscal libertarianism? or is it values? and what happened to a muscular foreign policy?) and a general gut feeling, fairly broadly held, that the incumbent will win in the end.

The table is open to entertain other theories — as well as evidence to the contrary regarding this diminution of enthusiasm.