Why former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer requested to meet the Bayshore Tea Party Group yesterday remains a mystery. If he wanted money, he never asked for it. He touted the fact that he won’t accept donations over $100, and that his average donation is $55, but he never asked. He boasted that he’s raised “a third of a million dollars.”
Asked why he was spending a Saturday in December in New Jersey rather than Iowa or New Hamsphire, Roemer responded, “I’m not in Iowa because it costs $2 million to compete there and I don’t have $2 million. I am in New Hampshire. A lot of people are going to be surprised by my showing in New Hampshire.”
Roemer’s conservative yet populist message would seem to be a perfect fit for the Tea Party crowd. But Roemer clearly wasn’t prepared to be questioned by the group of 20 Tea Party members who are obviously as well informed as they are passionate. He got himself in trouble with the group while embracing the Occupy Wall Street slogan of 1% vs 99% while decrying the influence of money in the presidential campaign. A debate ensued which devolved into bickering over whether or not corporations are people. A Tea Partier arguing that corporations are shareholders, employees and customers. Roemer arguing that a corporation has never been drafted into the military.
No one born after 1957 has been drafted into the military either.
Roemer eventually backed off the 1% vs. 99% slogan, apologizing for “using the language of the day” to make a point.
Roemer said he was competing for the GOP nomination, while acknowledging that he has been in touch with Americans Elect 2012 about a third party candidacy. That didn’t sit well with his audience either, who were concerned about a third party candidate helping President Obama get reelected and about Americans Elect’s funding from special interests. Roemer acknowledged that he hadn’t vetted Americans Elect prior to allowing his name to be attached to the group.
The former governor and congressman was particularly critical of Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, decrying the special interests funding their campaigns. He said Huntsman’s father is using legal loopholes to funnel $20 million to his son’s campaign. Roemer really doesn’t like Gingrich, with whom he served in Congress.
“There is no president amongst the current GOP front runners,” Roemer declared. There wasn’t a president at the Bayshore Tea Party Group office either.
At that’s too bad. There is a great deal about Roemer’s core message that is attractive.
He favors a flat tax; 17% of all income for all, individuals and corporations, over the first $50,000 earned. When asked about the fair tax, a national sales tax, Roemer said he could go that way too.
Roemer said he’s a fair trader, not a free trader. He would use tariffs and economic sanctions to bring balance to our relationships with China and Saudi Arabia. Tariffs on all oil importers, except Mexico and Canada, as well as the end of subsidies for unproven energy technologies, would be the keys to creating energy independence in a Roemer administration.
On foreign policy, Roemer said American should not be the world’s policeman. That he would emphasize economic sanctions to advance our interests, but would keep a strong military in the background. He was absolute that he would not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons.
Rick Perry trails the president by 53%-35%, Michele Bachman tails by 57% to 30%.
The nationwide poll of 855 registered voters says that 70% of voters say the United States is on the wrong track. 46% of the respondents disapprove of Obama’s performance. 45% approve.
Former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman will not be joining Governor Chris Christie on the campaign trail for Mitt Romney.
Whitman is a director of Americans Elect 2012, a PAC that converted into an educational group so that it would not have to disclose its donors. The group wants Americans to nominate a “centrist” Independent presidential candidate via Internet voting. They are working to secure ballot positions in all 50 states. So far they’re on the ballots in Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Nevada, Michigan, Florida, Ohio, and Utah. There are reports that they’ve submitted petitions in California and Hawaii.
Despite their success in collecting signatures to get on ballots, there is a lot of controversy about the group that will likely hamstring their efforts going forward. There is a clause in their by laws that allows the group’s directors to disqualify “America’s” candidate. They’ve got a rule restricting how their nominee selects his/her vice presidential candidate. The group says it doesn’t support or oppose any particular candidate at this point, but Whitman has been promoting Jon Huntsman as a third party candidate and Mark McKinnon, another director of the group, said Mitt Romney doesn’t have the cojones to be president.
Sounds more like a three ring circus than a third party. Besides, the Republicans look as though they are going to nominate a centrist in either Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich.
As an aside, how long will it be before a highly paid national pundit writes a column about what it means about America that the three front runners for president have weird first names?
Even without the other controversies surrounding Americans Elect 2012, Whitman joining their board should be a sign of that the group is doomed to fail. Her legacy as New Jersey’s Governor and as Administrator of the EPA under President George W. Bush is beyond embarrassing.
The messes that Governor Christie is cleaning up now….the broke pension system, broke transportation trust fund, broke unemployment insurance fund, Abbot and COAH, were all started or made worse by Whitman and her appointees. Shortly after 9-11, EPA Administrator Whitman declared the air at Ground Zero safe to breathe, thereby sending clean up workers to slow deaths and long term disabilities.
Despite Americans Elect’s foibles, a third party presidential candidate might be a good news for those who want President Obama to be a one termer.
In modern times, i.e., during the lifetimes of anyone likely to vote in 2012, there have been only two elected incumbent presidents denied a second term by the voters; Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. Both had significant third party challengers during their reelection bids. John Anderson, a Republican Congressman from Illinois ran against Carter and Ronald Reagan. Reagan won. Ross Perot, the populist Texas billionaire ran against Bush and Bill Clinton. Clinton won.
The bad news, from a historical perspective, is that Carter and Bush 41 also faced significant primary challenges prior to being renominated. Carter was challenged for the Democratic nomination in 1980 by Teddy Kennedy. Bush was challenged for the 1992 GOP nomination by Pat Buchanan.
Reagan’s primary challenge against Gerald Ford in 1976, preceding Carter’s election, may indicate that an incumbent’s problems within their own party may be more of a detriment to reelection than a third party challenge. Unfortunately, there is no Democrat seriously challenging Obama.
New York Post columnist John Podhoretz says New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg is “clearly eyeing” a third party run for president. A Bloomberg run might be America’s best hope of defeating Obama next year. The Mayor has the resources to make a credible run and a nanny state record to appeal to enough dissatisfied Democrats and left leaning Independents.
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.
Multiple media sources are reporting that Governor Chris Christie will endorse Mitt Romney for President during a press conference in New Hampshire at 3PM this afternoon.
Locally, news of Christie’s endorsement has had a negative reaction from Bayshore Tea Party Group founder Barbara Gonzalez who sent an “urgent” email to the group’s members and other Tea Party group leaders asking that they “take a leap of faith” and endorse Herman Cain for President.
“THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE ANTICIPATED WHEN HERMAN CAIN STARTED TO RISE IN THE POLLS”, wrote Gonzalez,
First, Christie was dragged out to run for President, and when that didn’t work, he is off to endorse Romney.
Are we really going to sit here and let them do this? Do you see what is happening here?
I know some of you don’t agree with me, but I am not going to sit back and let them dictate to me who is going to be the next President.”
In an email to supporters sent early this morning, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels said he would not enter the race for the GOP nomination for president, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The two term governor who worked for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush said his decision came down to family concerns:
“I was able to resolve every competing consideration but one, but that, the interests and wishes of my family, is the most important consideration of all,” he said in an e-mail sent after midnight.
Daniels and his wife Cheri divorced in 1993 and remarried in 1997. During those four years Cheri married a California man. The Daniels’ four daughters, now adults, remained in Indiana with there father. The Governor issued an other statement this morning to the Indianapolis Star this morning defending his wife against growing media scrutiny into their marriage, divorce, remarriage, and the claims by some that Cheri abandoned her daughters during their split:
“The notion that Cheri ever did or would ‘abandon’ her girls or parental duty is the reverse of the truth,” said his statement.
He called the idea “absurd to anyone who knows her, as I do, to be the best mother any daughter ever had.”
With Daniels out of the race, many observers expect the national Republican establishment to step up their efforts to recruit New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to seek the nomination. Christie has repeatedly declared that he will not be a candidate while at the same time establishing himself as a national leader for education reform, entitlement reform and reducing the size of government.
Daniels withdrawal will also increase the focus on former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman. Huntsman, who was President Obama’s ambassador to China, is on a five day tour of New Hampshire. He delivered the commencement address at Southern New Hampshire University and has made 12 campaign style stops throughout the Granite State.
If Huntsman formally enters the presidential race, for the first time two Mormons would be competing for a major party nomination. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the leader in most polls for the GOP nomination, is also a Mormon.
