Contributing RP Jason Atkinson has followed up his Internet sensation, “Big Mo” — which debuted here at The Recovering Politician — with a new short film on fishing, “Half Pounder.”
Enjoy:
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Reports out of the Indianapolis Colts state Peyton Manning is still looking to practice this season and retains hope that he may play in a game in 2011. Manning had his third neck surgery in 19 months in September when he had part of his spine fused. Unbelievable. [ESPN]
That doesn’t mean I think he’ll get the nomination. At some point, common sense will prevail. (Cross-posted, with permission of the author, from Politico’s Arena)
There is a mindset in some Democratic circles that religious whites are disproportionately economic conservatives who are natural Tea Party sympathizers. While Gallup did not test specific issues, I have seen a slew of polling data from Alabama–a top two ranked state in football and religiosity–that shows religious whites are often economic populists, distrust corporate elites, don’t mind putting more taxes on those elites, and that surprising shares of them embrace the notion of more government spending on education and, yes, safety nets like Medicaid. They are proud, church-going denizens of the 99 percent, in Occupy Wall Street parlance.
But if the economic lean of religious whites is surprisingly to the left, their stance on social issues leans hard in the other direction. The Public Religion Research Institute recently found that in a country where voters are sharply split on abortion, only 29% of “evangelical” whites favor its legalization, while almost two thirds oppose. Similarly, on same sex marriage, which elite opinion now conclusively favors, and on which the public is split in half, over 80% of white evangelicals oppose legalizing gay marriage.
Read the rest of… Can a candidate survive allegations that are roughly 15 years old, that are apparently not corroborated, and that resulted in relatively small settlements with his organization? Probably, but there are a catalogue of ifs: if he is straightforward and composed in his denial of the claims of harassment; if the women don’t come forward and put a compelling face on the charges, and if this is not just the tip of the iceberg around claims as to how he treats women under his supervision. In other words, this really falls on Herman Cain: does he have grace under fire and what kind of man, and boss, has he been?
The Cain team needs to study up on some recent history: how effectively the McCain campaign handled a New York Times story hinting at his infidelity with a lobbyist, and how Gov. Nikki Haley fended off even more lurid allegations in South Carolina last year. McCain and Haley both understood that the Republican base distrusts these kinds of blows as a political hit job, and Cain is already stoking the same flames. (Cross-posted, with permission of the author, from Politico’s Arena.)
If he can do that and not get distracted by other issues, Cain will implode. Bachmann will quit shortly after Iowa and file for reelection. Gingrich will go back to selling books and speaking for $25K a pop or whatever he gets. Santorum will go back to annoying people. And without all those candidates who’ve just been renting five to 20 percent of the voters, they’ll be up for grabs, and if anything is clear after the last five years, they aren’t really feeling Mitt Romney. So I think those voters break 2:1 or 3:1 for Perry.
By the way, I think Huckabee could swoop in tomorrow and scoop up enough of those “rented” voters to take the nomination. (Cross-posted, with author’s permission, from Politico’s Arena)
However, for Barack Obama, OWS happens to be the polar opposite of what he campaigned on as well as the message that launched him at the convention in Boston in 2004. Its “us versus them” mantra has made Wall Street its target, but its ultimate result would be a politics that is conflict-driven, divided, and bitterly conscious of the line between a “red” and a “blue” America. Obama should hear the anger in these protests, but he should recognize that it is poised to join the tea party as one more force that is pulling us apart. Cross-posted, with permission of the author, from Politico’s Arena. While the “Occupy Wall Street” movement gains some steam, some critics are pointing to some of the philanthropy taking place among the masters of the universe. In the following article, Newsweek profiles the work contributing RP Eva Moskowitz is doing to improve education for poor, urban youth in New York City and her support on Wall Street:
 Jeff Smith Perry’s attack itself may not have been that effective, but the reply he elicited from Romney was sure damaging: “I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake,” Mitt said he told his contractor. “I can’t have illegals!” Debates are about moments that (appear to) crystallize candidates as human beings. After the hostage crisis and other blows to American prestige, people craved strength in 1980, and so when Reagan boomed, “I paid for this microphone!”, it suggested that he could be provide America the backbone it wanted at that moment. When George H.W. Bush looked at his watch in the 1992 town hall, it indicated that he just wasn’t that concerned with people’s plight – as opposed to the famed Clinton empathy to which a recession-weary nation responded. A simple gesture spoke volumes, because it comported with what Americans suspected was true: Bush was out of touch with their suffering. In that vein, “I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake – I can’t have illegals!” Romney offered a window into his character: ambitious, practical, hands-on, and utterly lacking in principle. Let’s see if Perry can capitalize on this gift in the coming days. (Cross-posted, with permission of the author, from Politico’s Arena)
But scrapping the program validates some of the central critiques of health care reform – that it is overly complex, is unsustainable financially, and is too experimental and bureaucratic. And none this is hindsight – it is exactly what critics of the law argued would happen if the White House insisted on a systems overhaul of health are rather than a targeted attack on pre-existing illness exclusions and a federally-funded expansion of Medicaid.
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