Category: 2012 Election

He’s lost Harry Belafonte.

Well this is startling news.

Oklahoma Rep. Dan Boren (D) won’t seek reelection in 2012, a Democratic source in the state told The Ballot Box.

Boren, the only Democrat in Oklahoma’s five-seat House delegation, will announce his decision at a press conference in Muskogee, his hometown, according to The Oklahoman.

The decision came as a surprise to Oklahoma Democrats and threatens the party’s ability to hold the Republican-leaning seat.

“I never had any idea that he was not planning to run for reelection,” said Wallace Collins, the state party chairman.

Rep. Boren is a member of the NRA Board of Directors, and I’ve seen him out on a gun range before. He will be missed in that seat.

For a bit of good news on this front, the likely replacement for the Democratic nomination on the ballot according to the article also has an A rating from NRA.

Rick Santorum launches his Presidential bid. He’s not Mike Huckabee. That’s about the only good thing I can say about him.

A favorite among Republican social conservatives, Santorum, 53, reiterated a stump speech he has delivered for nearly a year in the early voting states. The central theme of his campaign is that God — not government — grants people their rights.

And Rick Santorum will the the first in line to tell you exactly which of those rights God does, and doesn’t grant. This is going to be long primary season. God help us.

I’m thankful I don’t have any errands to run today in Philadelphia because the Palin media circus has come to town. I don’t even understand what the hell this tour is about.

It’s not a family vacation – at least most families don’t launch political action committees to fund a completely wrapped bus in order to promote themselves and ask people to follow along when they head out to visit monuments and parks. It’s not a grassroots tour because she’s refusing to contact local tea party or Republican groups. It’s not a media tour because even though she invited her favorite host for an interview on the bus and is telling people to follow her for updates, she doesn’t really want them to follow her or talk to her. She says that it’s not a publicity tour, yet she’s “about highlighting the great things about America.” Highlight how if not through the press or groups with contacts on the ground in these areas?Highlighting to her staff who are paid to listen to her?

I think that this observation sums up the purpose of the tour:

Sarah Palin and her advisers are refusing to tell members of the media where she is going on her current bus tour – and the former Alaska governor seems to be enjoying the cat and mouse game that’s resulted.

It is the “Pay Attention to Me Tour of 2011.” The way she’s acting based on the Twitter accounts of those following the tour and her comments to the media are really juvenile at this point. If she is trying to sow support from the grassroots activists who will fuel any potential 2012 campaign, she’s not exactly demonstrating competency in putting together these kinds of events with any success.

Even though he’s a reasonably attractive candidate, Tim Pawlenty just isn’t driving a lot of excitement for Republican voters. He comes off as a pretty laid back guy just going in to do the jobs he has previously been elected to do. To be honest, that’s very appealing to me right now. It certainly has a lot more appeal than a leader who thinks he’s a rock star.

But I can tell you one thing that excites me about Pawlenty. I had the chance to meet him & actually talk to him at the Sportsmen for McCain launch in 2008. We had a chance to speak while we were watching the junior shooters who were shooting rounds of trap at the club. I didn’t really expect him to know gun policy. Many pro-gun politicians support the Second Amendment, but they don’t know the details of the actual policies that we either want to see enacted or benefit from in the real world like concealed carry. He and I chatted about concealed carry and other issues, and he actually knew the issues. I wish I could remember more specifics, but I was a little busy picking my jaw up off the ground after he started talking about it. So, yeah, that excites me.

Apologies for the poor video quality since my old digital camcorder was crap, but here is the video of his speech to kick off Sportsmen for McCain:

Ilya Somin likes Gary Johnson over Ron Paul. I heartily agree with Professor Somin, for many of the reasons he outlines.  Gary Johnson got on my radar screen, when after finishing out his second term as Governor of New Mexico, he proceeded to question the wisdom of the War on Drugs, calling it “an expensive bust.” In short, I think Johnson might be all the wookie we’re looking for, but without the suit.

I am concerned about his name recognition problem and his ability to raise money.

I shouldn’t really say looking up, since the GOP is still without an interesting or desirable candidate, but I’m happy that Huckabee is out, and I don’t have to spend 2012 listening to him talk about what kind of big government “Jesus juice” he drinks. Now Trump is out, and I don’t have to ponder the possibility of  a guy that lost a fortune in the casino business trying to figure out how to solve our massive deficit.

Now if only Mitt and Santorum would exit stage right (or stage left for Mitt?), things might to start to actually look up. Sure, there’s still Gingrich, but we can still hold out hope that the 90s will call, and ask for their candidate back.

I’m glad the White House finally put the birther nonsense to rest. Of course, it won’t work, and that’s probably the point. From what I’ve seen from e-mails forwarded around the Boomersphere, I think our parents’ generation has lost all ability to distinguish truth from falsity, so shortly I expect to see e-mails circulating, quoting a number of non-existent experts that point out all the reasons the long form birth certificate released by the White House is a forgery, tagged with FORWARD THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE A REAL AMERICAN in giant, blinking neon letters, maybe bordered with some animated graphics.

My apologies to you baby boomer readers who know better, and who laugh at this stuff as much as I do. Obviously I generalize, but behind every stereotype is a grain of truth somewhere. Laugh all you want. You know it’s true.