Beatty Gets It

It's a sad state of affairs when the person who makes the most sense when it comes to John McCain is none other than Warren Beatty:

I’ve known John McCain for a long time. He always said he was a conservative. He was a conservative. He is a conservative. It seems that people should take John McCain for what he says he is."

I wonder why the so-called conservatives can't grasp this.

Link via Jeff Ellis.

Something about McCain

Slate offers a repeat of a McCain anecdote that originally appeared in the New York Times Magazine in a profile by Michael Lewis. It's a pretty good story.

All the Veep Nonsense I Can Stand for One Week

In the midst of all the bigger news stories out there this week, I happened to hear mention that Mitt Romney, a man I really hoped would just gently and graciously slip out of the picture for now and always, has publicly stated his willingness to accept the VP slot on the Republican ticket should McCain offer it.

What it is with the hubris and vanity of these guys and gals when it comes to being Veep? First, Hillary says that she and Obama would make a dream ticket, presumably with her in the top spot, even though she's still trailing in the delegate count and most people say her chances of actually securing the nomination are incredibly slim. Even the conservatives who are pushing for their acolytes to run out and vote for Hillary in the primaries (you know who I mean - interestingly, the Google search I did to get that link turned up this article as well, with its truly cringe-worthy premise) don't seem to think she actually has a chance of securing the nomination, even though that's clearly the outcome they'd like. Instead, they seem to just want to keep the Democrats fighting each other as long as possible so that they look bad and will be kept off message, thus lending McCain an advantage. I could be wrong, but the assumption seems to be that Obama, at the end of the day, is still going to walk away with the nomination.

As for this Romney thing, all I can do is sigh and roll my eyes. First of all, duh. Of course Romney would be willing to accept the spot if it's offered. What the hell else is he going to do? He'd fall all over himself trying to accept it before McCain changed his mind. I love how he frames it, though, almost as if he'd be willing to go out of his way and do McCain a favor. How sickeningly presumptuous of him to even suggest that he should be under consideration.

Second of all, and most importantly, I really hope McCain doesn't choose this route. So, John McCain, if you're reading this, do not, under any circumstances, even think about making Mitt Romney your running mate. No one likes him, and it would only hurt you in the end. I know you may feel like you need to do something to reach out to the base, but trust me, there are better ways than elevating some two-bit hack who never should have been in the running in the first place. There's a reason he didn't get the nomination. He should have won it easily and handily, and he didn't, and that's because he, quite frankly, sucks.

Definitely Not with a Bang

...Romney goes down.

It's not the way the whole world ends, but it is the probable end of Romney's.

This is really good news:  Mitt Romney will definitely not be the President of the United States for the next four years.  Just take a moment to think about that one.  

...

It's nice, isn't it?

Jeff Ellis, whose post about the matter is linked above, has dubbed Romney "the John Edwards of the Republican Party."  I can think of no more astute political observation made this election cycle.  I also think it, in and of itself, is reason enough that we should be glad to be rid of Mitt Romney.  

UPDATE:  Bruce Reed has some interesting thoughts on Romney's rise and fall.  

Reason # 47 not to like Mitt Romney

I've been mildly interested to follow the super Tuesday vote this year, even though I don't live in one of the states voting and therefore have to wait until March to vote in a primary. (Not that this is a bad thing, since I currently don't have a candidate to cast my vote for.)

Anyway, I couldn't help but be intrigued by the news out of West Virginia, that Huckabee won the delegates at stake there, partially because of some political maneuvering of McCain's supporters in that state to deny a Romney victory. This kind of thing strikes me as being the very essence of politics.

Not so for the Romney camp, apparently:

Romney's campaign was furious over the "Washington backroom deal."

"Unfortunately, this is what Sen. McCain's inside Washington ways look like: He cut a backroom deal with the tax-and-spend candidate he thought could best stop Gov. Romney's campaign of conservative change," read a statement from Romney campaign manager Beth Myers.

**insert eye roll and derisive snort here**

Huckabee actually had a pretty good response:

Huckabee chuckled at the remark.

"I thought he was saying yesterday, 'No whining.' So is it no whining or whining? He can't even keep a straight answer on the 'whining or no whining' question," Huckabee said.

"There was no backroom deal," he added. "There wasn't even a front room deal. There was no deal."

Of course, the dig from Romney wasn't meant toward Huckabee, because he isn't a threat, but toward McCain.

And don't get me started on the phrase "conservative change." I might have to start rolling my eyes and snorting derisively again.

I would live blog the results tonight, as I haven't done that in a great long while and it's so much fun, but unfortunately, I have a Chemistry test to study for. Perhaps I'll pop on now and again to offer my thoughts.

And You Thought I Was Mean

So, I was perusing Slate this morning, which I haven't done in a long time, and I stumbled across this pretty interesting article about the primaries and their relevance in picking the nominees. Apparently, it's a two part series, and the one I read focuses on the Republican candidates.

The article is interesting, but that's not why I'm posting it. As I was reading, I came across the following statement:

John McCain's Jan. 29 victory in the Florida primary got him declared the GOP front-runner just about everywhere, from Reuters to Slate. This seems fairly legitimate. McCain now has more convention-bound primary delegates (95) than Mitt Romney (67); McCain beat Romney by a respectable five points, 36 percent to 31 percent; and this was a closed primary (that is, no independents—who tend to favor McCain—were permitted to vote).

On the other hand, prior to Florida, when Romney had 67 delegates to McCain's 38, and three primary or caucus victories to McCain's two, and a personal fortune to draw on for campaign expenses, which McCain lacks, one heard little talk of Romney being the front-runner. There's a simple explanation for this. Romney is a twerp and a fraud, and no one can stand him.

Ouch. And I thought maybe I was a little too harsh in my dismissal of him yesterday.

I do however, feel a little more justified in my dislike of him, though. It's not just Slate, apparently; it's everybody:

Even Romney's former volunteer driver in his 1994 Senate race against Ted Kennedy wrote on the New York Times op-ed page that due to the phoniness of his presidential campaign, "the Mitt Romney I know is sadly unrecognizable to today's voters." A Jan. 24 piece in the New York Times carried the extraordinary headline, "Romney Leads in Ill Will Among GOP Candidates." Romney's fellow candidates don't like him, and neither does the press. The only reason he's made it this far (apart from that personal fortune) is that a sizeable number of conservative Republicans see Romney as the only candidate who can stop McCain, whom they view (with some justification) as a crypto-liberal.

They even say something that I said yesterday, namely that conservatives like him because they don't like McCain and he is their best hope. The only think I disagree with is that those conservatives are justfied in thinking he's any kind of a liberal at all. Because he's not. Being more liberal than Pat Buchanan, or the ambition-fueled construct that Romney has created himself to be in order to become President, does not make one liberal. Ask any liberal (except those who work for Slate, apparently) what they think of McCain, and this will be confirmed for you.

Now, I know that McCain cultivates that image of himself as a maverick and a straight-talker. And I've even known many moderates and a few liberals (prior to his vociferous support of the Bush administration and the Iraq war) to be intrigued by him. But the fact that even he presents himself one way doesn't change the fact that he is a conservative. And I think, if you asked him and it weren't an election year and he could really be completely honest and not risk everything he's been working toward, he'd tell you that he is a conservative.

Republican Senator Hijinks

I used to do political blogging all the time, but now I rarely ever do. Only now I'm going to have two politics-related posts in a row. Republican politics, no less.

But I couldn't believe it when I heard the latest from Larry Craig. Did you hear? Despite earlier promising to do the smart thing (not to mention the best thing for his political party) and resign before his term is up, now Craig is vowing to stay and finish out the rest of his term. All of this is despite the fact that the judge wouldn't let him withdraw his earlier guilty plea.

This is hubris of the worst kind. The indecisive kind. The stupid kind. I don't think it's ever a good idea to annouce your intention to resign and then later back track from it, especially when you have absolutely no good reason for doing so. He says that he's seen how "effective" he can still be in the job. Putting aside the veracity of that statement, which is certainly questionable, it's just honestly not a good enough reason in the face of everything else.

If you read the article, you'll find a couple of interesting things. One, Arlen Specter is just about the only person willing to defend Craig's decision. I respect Specter, so I figured I'd read what he had to say. I don't disagree with it in theory, but it's also a bit naive to suggest that this doesn't reflect on the Republican Party. Maybe it shouldn't in a perfect world, but this is the real world, where it very much does.

To me, the actions of Craig, while utterly ridiculous, not to mention criminal, are not the thing that make him so stupid. It's that once Craig made the decision that he was going to resign, he should have just stuck with it. I agree that it is somewhat troublesome that the Republicans only seem to be treating Craig this way because the sexual misconduct involved was homosexual, but none of that changes the fact that Craig has handled this entire thing very, very poorly.

However, the most interesting things in all of the article comes from one of Craig's Republican opponents:

Some Republicans feel that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., went too far in late August when he called Craig's actions that led to his arrest "unforgivable."

I must have missed this when it orignally happened. McConnell might want to read the Bible a bit more closely before he speaks in the future, as there is no sin God won't forgive, and he expects his people to do the same. Then again, perhaps it's understandable McConnell was so confused. I'm not sure how much God's forgiveness gets preached in the Baptist church these days.