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Friday Potpourri: Mitt’s In Edition
By: Jeff Spector
I am discussing four items of a political nature today that has caught my eye this past week or so in the News.
Mitt’s In!
So it appears that the United States will have its first real Mormon Presidential candidate that has a chance of winning the Presidency in Mitt Romney as Rick Santorum drops out of the race to “spend more time with his family” and, of course, avoid a second embarrassing defeat in his home state of Pennsylvania.  There is no question that Rick is a family man and his little girl was recently hospitalized again. Rick stayed off the campaign trail to be at her side.
None of which would be possible without the solid gold healthcare plan he has from his time serving in Congress and the Senate, which is helping keep his daughter alive beyond the life expectancy of most children with her Trisomy 18 condition. I hope that she has a long and healthy life made possible by the US taxpayer, a benefit Rick would deny other parents in the same situation. But that is another story.
Back to Mitt. Mitt now has the problem of appealing to the middle of the road and independent voters who are actually going to decide this election. Having painted himself into the most right wing corner of the room will make it difficult for him, given his reputation as the flip-flopping, etch-a-sketch candidate. The improving economy, as tenuous as it is, also doesn’t help.
Luckily, he has his wife, Ann, who is much more appealing to most people except for:
Hilary Rosen’s All Day Meal of Foot
Democratic strategist and former head of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) Hilary Rosen stepped in it big time over the past two days for a comment made on CNN Wednesday night. You can find it here. But this was the line that got her in trouble:
“Ann Romney never worked a day in her life.”
Now, the context was that Mitt Romney refers to his wife, Ann, as knowing the problems that working women have and that she knows that there main concern is the economy. Rosen was trying to attack Romney for saying this since Ann has always been a rich stay-at-home Mom and how can she really know anything about what real people struggle with on a daily basis.
Rosen got it wrong on some many levels she was roundly attacked from all sides, even from her own including President Obama that she finally had to retreat to an apology on Thursday afternoon. Especially if she wanted to work for the Democratic Party again. At this point, neither party wants to be even remotely seen as hostile to women of any kind, even though that has already been a hot topic recently. Rosen also has a problem because she is the person who went after single Moms, teenagers and poor people with lawsuits on music downloading when she was the head of RIAA. So she has no room to talk about being disengaged from the real world.
As Mormons we know a few things. Raising a large family is hard work. Raising kids while having to work is hard work and just having to work can be hard work. Women talk to each other and I think that Ann is a nice person and it would be natural for women on the campaign trail to confide in her about their situation. She is obviously a smart woman so she can be a voice for these women to her husband and the campaign. That is primarily where Rosen got it wrong. Just like the:
Arrest made in the Trayvon Martin Case is for Political Reasons
Well, the shoe has dropped and George Zimmerman has been arrested in the killing of Trayvon martin. This should have happened a long time ago but apparently the Sanford Florida Police Department took the initial evidence strictly at face value and decided this was a justified “Stand your ground” killing. The political pressure put on State Prosecutor Angela Corey to bring charges was huge and anything less would have potentially been disastrous.
Now the whole thing can play out where it belongs in the court of law and the professional attention seekers can go home. I don’t know at this point whether this is a racial incident or not, but those that make their money off of making things racial sure had their day in the sun on this one.
One interesting note is that Trayvon’s Mom Sybrina Fulton, a very gracious lady under these extreme conditions made an interesting statement that she thought the killing was accidental. I assume she means that George Zimmerman didn’t intend to kill her son and that it just happened as a result of the circumstances. But, as with many statements made these days, it was quickly retracted and then later on Thursday, Fulton released a statement to MSNBC saying, ”in NO way did I mean the shooting was an accident.” I am sure her “advisors” made that move for her.
Bill Cosby also made an interesting statement having to do with George Zimmerman carrying a gun. He said, “Without a gun, I don’t see Mr. Zimmerman approaching Trayvon by himself,” Cosby added. ”The power-of-the-gun mentality had him unafraid to confront someone. Even police call for backup in similar situations.  ”When you carry a gun, you mean to harm somebody, kill somebody.” (ABC News)
However this situation plays out, someone will not be happy. It appears that a crime was committed, but that will be for a jury to ultimately decide. But if you want to talk criminal, here is the:
The GSA robs taxpayers while having a good time!
The General Service Administration (GSA) is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. The GSA supplies products and communications for U.S. government offices, provides transportation and office space to federal employees, and develops government-wide cost-minimizing policies, and other management tasks. Well, these folks, charged with reducing cost have been living high off the hog at Taxpayer expense. I am sure you’ve heard about the $800K party they held in Las Vegas, but that really only scratches the surface.
While this happened on Obama’s watch, there is apparently a long standing sense of entitlement matched only by our politicians and corporate executives. The agency routinely spent millions of dollars on lavish affairs and conferences under the guise of “sharing best practices on saving government money.” Yeah, right.
In addition to dinners and conferences, they reward themselves with electronics such as iPODs, iPADs, smartphones, etc. They devised a policy which allowed them to hold a government-paid dinner to dish out awards to each other like the “Jackass” Award. In other situation, they paid over $300,000 to relocate an employee to Hawaii from Denver. Other reports uncovers millions spent on relocations.
As a result, the GSA administrator has had to quit as well as a number of other executives. Members of Congress are rightly outraged, but cautioned not to look too hard in the mirror.
(1) Hillary Rosen’s intended point was correct, in that Ann “I’m not rich!” Romney’s never wanted for anything in her life since falling in with her husband’s family. Rosen’s mistake was an outrageously stupid choice of words, and not a sentiment against stay-at-home mothers.
(2) While I agree that political realities basically mandated that George Zimmerman be arrested, this is one case where I’m thankful for “political realities.”
(3) The GSA thing is incredibly embarassing, particularly to other federal employees who don’t deserve to be painted with the same brush. As a manager in another federal agency, I can’t begin to imagine how they’ve gotten away with what they have before now. When I’ve attended work related conferences, I’ve been lucky if they provided a cookie and a can of soda. We have absolutely ZERO budget for anything like that. If I want to reward my employees with lunch for a job well done, it’s coming out of my personal pocket. If the office wants to recognize birthdays with a cake and card, it’s paid for by taking up a voluntary collection. Even when we moved our office to a new building, we were ordered to ensure that we took any personal items (plants, pictures, mugs, etc.) home during the move period, because taxpayer funds were not to be used for our individual benefit. Maybe my agency is extreme in this, but how GSA could go so far in the other direction boggles my mind.
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Nick,
I’ll grant you that the overall point she was trying to make is a valid one for her POV and she did a very dumb thing.
But, Hilary is certainly not in a position to judge Ann as she is an uber rich lawyer herself who doesn’t have a real clue about raising a large family or having to work. She has been all about being able to make choices.
The GSA is simply the wolf guarding the henhouse…
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What a week.
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Three good late night quotes from this week:
“Because Mitt Romney is a Mormon he can actually have several vice presidents. Did you know that?” –David Letterman
“It turns out that Newt Gingrich’s campaign wrote a $500 check to participate in the Utah primary, but it bounced. Even M.C. Hammer was like, ‘Manage your money, bro.’” –Jimmy Fallon
“Newt Gingrich admitted to The Washington Post that he knows he probably won’t be the Republican nominee for president, but he’s not bowing out of the race because he’s $5 million in debt. So he needs to keep raising money. How do you continue to raise money when you’ve already admitted you probably won’t win?” –Jimmy Kimmel
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Heber13,
Love all of those! Especially the Letterman.
Thanks
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Nicj, you mean your agency is not on par with the GSA? How can that be? Or is the government in trickle down mode too? ;)
I abhore current politics — want to start a neofederalist party.
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The Ann Romney quote has some validity to it, but for a different reason. Romney has been a CEO of a large corporation. He’s been a bishop. He’d better be comfortable talking to women about all sorts of issues! I suspect he was trying to overplay a strength (that people were finding Ann warmer and more relatable than he is viewed). But he needs to fix that pretty quickly.
Rosen’s remark about him telling a single mother she was shaming the church by having a child out of wedlock doesn’t ring true to me at all, either. Sounds like Rosen’s biases are coming out. A bishop would talk about a child’s right to be raised by two parents in a supportive environment, not about keeping up appearances.
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Given the republicans current major disconnect with women, if I were Romney’s campaign staff I would search high and low for any comment or even any innuendo from the left/democrats (or for that matter anyone) that would disparage Ann Romney in any way. Ann Romney is a class act and very authentic. She makes a perfect straw-woman. Make her the issue and not Romney’s character or his policies and have women, whether stay at home or working who want to be appreciated for their full time mother job, identify with her and have Romney by association repair some of the damage done by his party. Brilliant strategy to keep finding anything from anyone taking on Ann.
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#8:Ron Madson,
I see the strategy a little different. I see an effort to get the Romneys into showing their Mormon Culture/voices by having them talk about SAHM and Working women(?)
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I think an interesting perspective on this that Rosen missed is that Mormon couples often think of themselves as a team. It’s not about working women vs. SAHMs. It’s not about class warfare. It’s about Mitt seeing Ann as his equal partner. The story he can’t be telling is that she’s his feminine side or his better half or what keeps him in touch with his feelings. We’d like to elect leaders who are have both head and heart, who represent ALL the people, who are whole people in their own right.
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#10: Hawkgrrrl,
“The story he can’t be telling is that she’s his feminine side or his better half or what keeps him in touch with his feelings”.
IMO, Mitt can’t tell this story because the Obamas have already told this about themselves better than the Romneys can.
I see the Obamas as a stronger family than the Romneys__but that could be just me.
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The politically motivated “lynching” of George Zimmerman is a pathetic example of how the politicians think. The man prevented future crime, pure and simple. He may not be anyone that I’d consider suited by temperament to serve in law enforcement, but he took out a punk BEFORE too much harm was caused. Of course, methinks involuntary manslaughter ought to have been initially charged since its a 28 y.o. killing a 17 y.o., that along begs for investigation. This smacks of the Casey Anthony case all over again. The prosecution is already overreaching. Murder Two? Garbage! At worst involuntary manslaughter (I’m thinking CA, I don’t know if FL makes a distinction between voluntary vs. involuntary re: manslaughter), but perhaps the goof took out the trash after all. The very fact that the race-baiting clowns Jackson and Sharpton were trumping Treyvon Martin’s cause speaks volumes.
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And now Potpourri for four hundred…
It’s still a long way to Tampa. Plenty of time for a “conservative alternate” (Re: We don’t want a Mormon in the White House) to crop up. Until Mitt gets the numerical majority, don’t declare victory on his behalf. Something my 78 y.o. Dad told me some time ago: the Southern White conservative is a Baptist (or Methodist, or Presbyterian, or whatever Protestant denomination he’s at least nominally of) before he’s a Republican or Democrat.
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Douglas,
“The politically motivated “lynching” of George Zimmerman is a pathetic example of how the politicians think.”
Honestly, your remarks are pretty offensive. Try to separate the unnecessary killing of a 17 year old kid from the “professional race chasers.”
In this case, politicians themselves are not a real factor.
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Hillary Rosen Translation: I am envious of Ann Romney that she did what God intended and stayed at home with her children where she belongs. I mean look at them, all extremely well adjusted positively contributing to society. Oh, and I am further jealous that her husband provides a lifestyle that allows her to fulfill her divine destiny. Along with the Obama team we will continue to join Lucifer in promoting jealously, envy, and division to fight what is good and right because we for sure as hell can’t defend the record of Obama.
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Rosen’s comments are a clear case of the pot calling the kettle full of it when it comes to wealth. Some rich people like their pay in dollars, some in euros; some like their pay in dollars, some in political power. When you visit the WH on business 35 times in, what, 38 months, get hired by the WH Communications Director Anita Dunn to consult with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, you clearly like your pay in political power.
I don’t think Rosen is bad, and I suspect the two adopted children SHE is raising with her lesbian partner think she’s a pretty sensational mother herself. So I think Will’s comments are out of line.
However, the attacks on Ann Romney were an intentional part of a Dem attempt to promote the “war on women” meme as one of frequent attempts to keep the discussion off the economy. It was a huge political blunder.
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#14 (El Jefe)…I rely on the words of Harry S Truman..I don’t “give ‘em hell”, I speak the truth and to SOME it is “hell”. The facts uncovered thus far (but not mentioned on MSNBC or CNN) is that though Zimmerman was chasing down young Martin, he was sandbagged and beat down. Rather than being a sweet little kid, young Martin was a strapping six-footer, and in a straight fist fight he should have had the advantage. Now, it will depend on the evidence as to whether Zimmerman was justified to use deadly force. As I pointed out previously, I wondered why he wasn’t at least charged by the Seminole County DA (I have some acquaintances that I grew up with there but they don’t know the folks involved, the place has grown considerably since I lived there 1971-1977) with manslaughter..a grown man shot an unarmed minor. But motivated by race? Not unless we’ve turned the law on its head from about sixty years ago so that anytime a black is a crime victim of any other than another black, it’s a race thing.
Yes, be offended because anyone with a brain would find the race-baiting employed by the REAL “Three Stooges” (J. Jackson, Sharpton, and Obama) offensive and a sign of the degeneracy of the rule of law in this country. A case that ought to be pled to manslaughter will be tried as a murder two, and like Casey Anthony last year, the goof will walk. Got a way to put a friendly wager on it?
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#16 – Good point, Firetag, and shows early on how filthy and low the Dems and their “Commie” (as my dear ol’ Dad would put it) allies have degenerated. It’s as if Ann Romney has committed a “crime” for the “offense” of finding a good man to marry, bearing him several children, focusing her obvious talents on her family instead of self-aggrandisement as did, say, Hillary Rodham-Clinton, and supporting her husband’s career ambitions. Like Sarah Palin four years ago (albeit clumsily), Ann Romney takes all the feminist claptrap and shoves it back up the filthy chute from whence it came.
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