Romney and Ryan on 60 minutes

• Tweet

• Tweet

Romney will announce VP pick Saturday at 9am

Fox News is reporting the GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney will announce his choice of running mate Saturday morning at 9am in Norfolk, Virginia.

Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan is thought to be the choice.

• Tweet

GQ: Dear Mitt: Please Pick Chris Christie

GQ columnist Reid Cherlin says Mitt Romney should pick Governor Chris Christie as his running mate over the “milkiest of milquetoast options,” Ohio Senator Rob Portman or former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.  Hat tip to Bob Ingle.

Yes, I know the criticisms. Chris Christie is a hot-head and a showboat. He’s overweight. He doesn’t represent a key swing state.  He’d be uncontrollable, in the way that Sarah Palin was uncontrollable. He’d  suck up all the oxygen and leave Romney fiddling in the wings, or worse,  cleaning up his messes. All that is true, to a degree.

But let’s remember the other key truism here: people vote for the top of the  ticket, not the would-be VP. As you’ve read countless times, the real virtue of  the running mate pick is that he can be nastier on the attack, he doubles your  capacity for in-person campaigning, and your selection of him says something  essential about your judgment. I think Christie would be a win for Romney on all  three fronts. He is an excellent attack dog. He lives for town-hall campaigning.  And his pick would make loud and clear—to Romney’s still-unenthused Republican  critics, and to swing voters who love moderate East Coast Republicans—that he’s  serious about kicking ass. Most of all, though, Christie is damn entertaining.  He is disarmingly blunt. He’s a ham,  he takes tough questions head-on,  and he loves the parry-and-thrust that is weaker pols’ undoing. There’s a reason  he remains so popular.

The campaign so far has been an utter grind, and Romney’s VP announcement is  our last, best chance for an infusion of something fresh, interesting, and new.  Please, Governor Romney: I know you’re a businessman above all else. But can’t  we all just have some fun for once?

I have to agree. Portman or Pawlenty will put voters to sleep.

I would love Romney to make an “out of the box” VP choice like Condie Rice, Allen West or Marco Rubio.   But Rice doesn’t want to do it and probably would not perform well on the campaign trail.  West is a patriotic hero but comes across as angry.  Angry scares voters.  I don’t think Rubio is ready, for the office or for the glare of negative media attention that would come down on him.

No one articulates the case against Obama better than Christie.  Christie has a Reaganesque optimism and ability to communicate it in a way that inspires like no one else on the national scene.

Christie will bring an excitement, and fun, to the race that no one else can bring.

If the presidential race keeps going the way its going, voters will tire of the campaign before Halloween.  Christie will engage voters more than any VP candidate since Thomas Jefferson and the media won’t get the better of him like they did of Sarah Palin.  ( I can’t believe I just put Thomas Jefferson and Sarah Palin in the same sentence.)

Most importantly, with Chris Christie as his running mate, Mitt Romney can win.

• Tweet

Guess who’s coming to dinner

Over at NJ.com Star Ledger columnist John Farmer tells a tale of a dinner party he attended where he asked his fellow Caucasian guests (and hosts presumably) if they believe President Obama was born outside of the United States and if they believe he is a Muslim.  Most of the guest at the party that took place in a “pretty typical” “slightly upper-middle class neighborhood” admitted to believing that Obama is a foreign born Muslim, so said Farmer in the piece, After nearly four years of Barack Obama, is white America still uneasy with a black man in the White House?  Most of the commenters at NJ.com think the column is fiction.

How could Obama even have become president if white America was uneasy with a black man in the White House?

After four years, more Americans of all races are uneasy with that particular black man in the White House!    Herman Cain or Allen West would not make me uneasy.  Condoleeza Rice wouldn’t make me uneasy.  Colin Powell’s uneasiness makes me uneasy, not his skin color.

Farmer’s column is likely the an early indication of how the race card will be played by the left stream media in conjunction with the Obama campaign over the next four + plus months.

What will happen is “white guilt” isn’t working according to polling data come October?  What will the lefties do if Mitt Romney chooses a black running mate?

• Tweet

Romney hits back at Obama lies

Invoking Hillary Clinton from her ill-fated 2008 Democratic presidential primary against Barack Obama, the Romney for President campaign is releasing a television ad today that pushes back on Obama’s claims that Romney outsourced jobs while managing Bain Capital.

• Tweet

Booker fears Obama’s wrath more than he fears burning buildings

Newark Mayor Cory Booker caused a stir on NBC’s Meet The Press yesterday morning by defending private equity firms, Mitt Romney’s role at Bain Capital and calling the negative ads coming from both Romney and Obama supporters “nauseating.”

Booker, who made headlines last month when he ran into a burning house to save the lives of his neighbors, was calling for a higher level of political discourse, urging both campaigns to lift the country by focusing on the big issues rather than getting bogged down in the small minded attacks.
 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

During his Meet The Press appearance, Booker said he was on the phone with the White House often and that he was a surrogate for the President’s campaign.

There must of been some high level phone calls to the Mayor after the NBC appearance.  Probably from Vice President Joe Biden’s gaffe handlers.   A few hours after Bookers remarks threatened politics are we know it, the Mayor took to YouTube to restore normalcy.
 

The heat coming from Washington must of been hotter than the fire the Mayor ran into.  It became a threat to the fire in his belly.

• Tweet

Is Religion Relevant?

Submitted by the always irreverent TR

There has been a lot of hullabaloo recently about whether Romney’s religion is relevant to this election.  Most recently because some preacher caused a stir by calling Mormonism a cult.

Funny how Republicans all thought the church Obama attended was relevant. The Democrats have no problem raising Perry’s religious beliefs about creation.  Let’s sweep away the hypocrisy and rank political correctness and ask a general question, “Are a persons religious beliefs fair game in an election”?

Of course they are and anyone who says otherwise is a damn liar.  If someone is a Muslim of the Wahhabi sect or Salafi( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabi) sect that is not going to play into whether you vote for them?  What about if they belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Later day Saints that practices polygamy and child bride marriage or if they are scientologists a group that has been accused of being a cult and of engaging in criminal enterprises, does that matter?  Then there are Santeria voodoo worshipping chicken sarificers and pot smoking Rastafarians and white supremacy churches, what about them?

Look me in the eye and say none of that matters.

Of course it matters.  It matters because nothing tells you more about a person then their religious belief system.

Of course we don’t have religious tests for office and we have freedom of religion but it is a false dichotomy to suggest that this means we cannot as individuals question a person who will represent us about their belief system and use it to make an individual choice as to who to vote for.

For those who vilify anyone who questions Romney’s religious beliefs I ask this.  Do you know anything about Mormonism, its tenets, its history?  No well maybe you should before you make a decision.  Don’t get me wrong I am not saying his religion disqualifies him.  I am saying that questions about his religion and his beliefs and those of every single candidate are fair game. This is not a call for sectarianism. This is recognition that what we believe is important.   I am claiming there is nothing wrong with saying I am not voting for John Candidate because I do not like his religious beliefs.  I say that because those beliefs are integral to who that candidate is and how he think or she thinks. If you don’t like who they are you should not vote for them.

Let’s stop playing” the religion is not fair game” card and “it is a private matter” card.  If you want to be a candidate defend your belief system. Tell us why it makes you a better person, a better leader or maybe you say I am a nominal whatever and it does not play a large part in my life.  That says something about you too. Some voters will hate it and some will love it but at least we will all have a better idea of who you really are.

• Tweet

SNL Spoofs Romney and Christie

• Tweet