In past elections, the Bush/Rove team undercut, back stabbed and push polled John McCain's campaign without mercy, limits nor reservations.  Now, we are supposed to believe that they are "good friends"?  Mr. McCain has attempted to become the nominee in past elections and has been viciously attacked by his own party's hard core base.  The primary leading to his nomination this election cycle was no exception to that historical precedent.  Right wing talk radio and pundits were seen to join Mitt Romney's campaign and Mike Huckabee's campaign in attacking the authenticity of McCain's conservative credentials, his "Republicaness" if you will.  Once again, completely out of touch with the average voter and America at large (even the average Republican voter, perhaps), the far right wing of the Republican party pushed McCain and the other candidates as far to the right as possible to appeal to the base. This is fairly typical of a primary fight, one must acknowledge, and McCain, of course, managed to win the nomination despite these attacks from within.

In response to NathanRudy's diary, Totally Selfish Request: No Mitt Romney!!!!! I just have to say...

sigh I need a drink.  There are more and more rumors of Mitt being named Veep for McCain and this disturbs me, and not just because he tied his dog to the roof of his car.  This changes a lot of races in my area.

I am FAR more selfish then NathanRudy in proclaiming "NO MITT ROMNEY!!!!"

Mitt Romney wanted badly to be president, but he didn't get his pony. However, it turned out that he is so eager to settle for a rocking horse that the Boston Globe is reporting that Willard is prepared to eat his $45 million campaign debt.

So Hotline says Robert Novack says sources say (it's like middle school dating, huh?) that McCain might announce his choice for VP next week, and that the name Novack is hearing is former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

That'd be, by the way, a ticket of flip-floppers on choice since both men were pro-choice and went over to the dark side when they decided to seek the Presidency.

But that's neither here nor there when it comes to why I object to Mitt Romney being on the ticket.  Over the last decade, I forget when, he bought a house on New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee about 3/4 of a mile down the shore from me.  I'm sure the Secret Service has been all over my past already since he was running for Pres, but it's gonna get worse if he runs for VP!

In their book "free ride," David Brock and Paul Waldman spell out how the media, while downplaying critical stories, and applying differing standards, has given John McCain a relatively free ride on many issues that otherwise require far more illumination and examination.  

This trend of skewed coverage and factually off base, pro McCain commentary, is so prevalent in the media that oftentimes, even so called "media liberals" partake of it.  

The good news is the consensus is McCain will choose Mitt Romney for his running mate. Good because contrary to some conventional wisdom ( which is no wisdom at all ) Romney is not going to change the dynamics of the campaign. If he was going to he would have done fsr better than he did in the Primaries. On paper Romney should have blown McCain away. Instead Republicans yawned.

Wow, Frank Rich's Sunday NYT Op Ed column, It’s the Economic Stupidity, Stupid, just slams McCain! Despite a somewhat odd discussion towards the end about VP candidates, it's a thing of beauty, with this as the central point:

were voters forced to actually focus on Mr. McCain’s response to our spiraling economic crisis at home, the prospect of his ascension to the Oval Office could set off a panic that would make the IndyMac Bank bust in Pasadena look as merry as the Rose Bowl.

Is the MSM starting to get it?

(This is actually a repost from some months ago, but I put so much time into hunting down the appropriate photos, I decided to repost it; besides, I'm depressed about not being able to make it to NN this year, so I wanted to post something light to cheer myself--and perhaps others--up a bit)

Several months back, Canadian Noise posted an Oscar-themed diary which speculated on the casting for a filmed version of the 2008 Presidential race.

Unfortunately, the diary didn’t get much notice, but I thought it was such a fun idea that I ran with it, and came up with the following. The only rule I made for myself is to take it seriously—no cartoon characters, no dead actors; all of the choices have to be current, professional film or TV actors. Feel free to toss your own ideas into the ring; I know that I’m way off on at least some of my choices, but what the hell...

Normally, this would be a pretty generic headline - something along the lines of '[politican's name here]'s Ambition Knows No Bounds' is pretty standard fare in American political discourse.  But anyone who read my diary on VP knows that I firmly believe that Mitt Romney was the Republican's best chance for victory this year and will probably be in 2012 (even more so with a VP nod under his belt).  I think he knows that, and the fact that there is no visible friction whatsoever within this man who has gone from annihilating McCain at every turn to giving him credit for things that a)he didn't invent and b)aren't all that great makes be very, very afraid.  I think we have to take him seriously.

For all the hype surrounding the prolonged primary battle on our side, there's been very little attention paid to what the Republican nomination process looked like in 2008.  Our bloated attempt to copy their get-a-nominee-as-soon-as-possible-and-commence-nuking-the-fuck-out-of-the-other-side (phew) system with Super Duper Tuesday fell flat on its stupid face, while McCain appeared to be a man on an island - with a party united behind him.  

Clearly, the Republicans had their act together in a way we didn't - they had gone in, grim faced, and pulled levers for a man they had all but burned in effigy over his illegal immigration compromise with Senator Kennedy because he was their best candidate for President, principles be damned.  Must not have mattered who McCain was running against.

Now, since this is the MSM's preferred storyline, I call bullshit as a sheer reflex reaction - then I see if said declaration of bullshit has legs.  A whole bunch of legs under the fold.

I'm posting this diary in the hopes that some of you will be better able to grab some information from the push polls that I suspect will be making their way to you within the next few days.

Maybe it is just me. Did anyone else wonder what transpired in early February causing Mitt Romney to suddenly suspend his presidential election campaign? Just as he enjoyed the near unanimous support of talk radio’s conservative elite and the secular right, He threw in the towel! When speaking before CPAC, he put aside his prepared speech which had been distributed to the press and he unexpectedly withdrew from the race. He is said to have spent $40 million dollars of his own money on the race. Why quit?

What was the Deal??

Who says the U.S. doesn't condone torture?

This still needs work... I'm sure you recall the mock schedule that was being circulated in 2004. I made a few edits, omissions, updates... but I'm sure it can be improved.
Any contributions would be appreciated.

The Political Newsline took a look to see who still has debt from the presidential primary and who is free and clear.

Democrats

   * Clinton        $22,523,860
   * Kucinich       $1,177,644
   * Biden          $1,170,869
   * Dodd           $386,991
   * Edwards        $354,719
   * Richardson     $285,418
   * Gravel         $136,565

Republicans

   * Romney         $44,600,000
   * Giuliani       $3,124,113
   * Hunter         $222,447
   * Huckabee       $121,109
   * Thompson       $83,648
   * Paul           $0  
   * Tancredo       $0

Yesterday's Politico had an article on Longshots in the veepstakes that raised some of the more interesting potential VP candidates.

 This is going to be a quick and dirty late night diary. It'll probably disappear without a trace in the early hours. FWIW this is a bit of therapy and a chance to pass on a few things that might be useful.

  My wife called me at work on Friday from her job, really upset. She'd gotten a call from Little Rock AFB to let us know that a member of our family who's currently in Iraq flying C-130 Hercules transports was NOT involved in a C-130 that had to make a forced landing, and that everyone who had been on the plane was okay. They didn't want us to be worried if we saw/heard anything on the news. Except we hadn't and still haven't seen anything. I did some googling tonight and finally tracked down the details, such as they are.

Not enemy action, so no big deal. The traditional media blackout on Iraq wasn't worth breaking for the story of a plane going down since everyone survived - and didn't end up on a mysterious island. And if there's any story beyond that, well we all know they're not looking. I did find a couple of other things of interest though. (more)

   Every once in awhile I see mass media blasted for being inattentive or sloppy or exhibiting a pack mentality (or exhibiting no mentality at all), and I recoil, just as you might if somebody trashed the entirety of your field.
   And then something happens that makes me think the criticism isn't merely justified - it's understated.
   Did anybody notice that Grover Norquist walked into the Washington bureau of The Los Angeles Times yesterday and dismissed Obama as "John Kerry with a tan?"