As part of his role as a member of Politico’s Arena, contributing RP Jeff Smith was asked whether or not Presidential contender Michele Bachmann could survive a series of gaffes over the past year, including stating that the Revolutionary War began in Concord, N.H. rather than Concord, Mass.
Here’s Jeff’s response:
I don’t think gaffes like this are a big problem for a candidate like Bachmann as she seeks the nomination.
The Republican Party has long appealed to the anti-intellectual strain of the electorate, starting with Nixon and his lambasting of academics (a concerted attempt to bring in the Wallace vote), continuing through Reagan and Bush 43, and culminating in Palin know-nothingism. If anything, these mistakes are often “owned” and used as a self-effacing badge of honor (see “misunderestimate,” “refudiate,” and “I can see Russia from my house”), against media and academic elites who actually care about electing leaders with a mastery of basic grammar and American history.
Of course, gaffes like this, and her out of the mainstream views, will ensure that she will never be president.
By Stephanie Doctrow, RP Staff, on Tue Jun 28, 2011 at 10:00 AM ET
Rest in peace, Nick Charles. CNN’s first sportscaster died on Saturday after a two-year struggle with bladder cancer. [CNN]
New York legalized gay marriage over the weekend, and you better believe that Twitter went crazy. Here’s a list of the 11 best celebrity tweets from the weekend. [Time]
Speaking of gay marriage… Jon Stewart let the New York Senate have it when, during the time they could have been working on passing gay marriage, they debated about making sweet corn the state vegetable. [NY Magazine]
Lindsey Lohan recently let cameras into her house to film a commercial for a penny auction website. It turns out, LiLo’s house is decorated with… photos of LiLo. [Gawker]
A viral news story this week reported that Jews couldn’t fly on Delta Airlines’ new flights to Saudi Arabia, and the story was completely untrue. Here’s how the story became a sensation. [Poynter Institute]
Within the past hour, the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) issued a release that strongly denounced the anti-Semitic language used by former Kentucky GOP gubernatorial candidate, Larry Forgy, in a TV interview that was discussed earlier today at The Recovering Politician.
[T]his incident is deeply troubling and deserves condemnation from all who believe that anti-Semitic language and canards have no place in our political discourse.
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Jun 23, 2011 at 12:15 PM ET
Earlier this week, I wrote a piece for The Huffington Post that shared some absurd and offensive comments made by Larry Forgy — a former Kentucky GOP gubernatorial nominee and a prominent supporter of GOP State Senator David Williams’s 2011 campaign for Governor — regarding the Jewish faith of Governor Steve Beshear’s running mate, former Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson:
The “only reason” Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear picked former Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson to be his running mate was “to attract New York and Hollywood Jewish money” for the campaign.
See the interview with Insight’s CN2 “Pure Politics” below.
Of course, in typical Williams style, he blamed a Democrat for starting the controversy.
Me:
Unfortunately, Larry Forgy stood his ground in another interview with Insight. Forgy claimed that Jews such as George Soros, Barbra Streisand and Steve Spielberg would be pumping in significant loads of cash to support their co-religionist’s bid for Lt. Governor. Of course, the reporter followed the interview by noting that none of the those famous names had contributed; and in fact, the Beashear campaign had raised only a tiny fraction of his campaign war chest in New York and Los Angeles.
I share the video interview below with a little hesitation. I want to assure my out-of-state readers that this is not a reflection of the significant majority of Kentucky citizens who have embraced their Jewish brothers and sisters and do not believe in a Jewish conspiracy led by Soros, Streisand and Spielberg that dominates national politics. With that caveat, check out the video below:
As Joe Biden famously said during the 2008 primaries, each sentence in Rudy’s stump speech consisted of a noun, a verb, and 9/11.
So if Republicans want to spend next fall talking about the shining moment of the Obama presidency (the successful Seal raid), Rudy would be the perfect nominee.
No, I don’t think he could win New Hampshire. But even if he did, remember that New Hampshire – won by Buchanan in ’96 and McCain in ’00 – has been far from dispositive. South Carolina has been the key to the nomination. And as ’02 SC Senate candidate Alex Sanders said when Rudy came down to stump for Lindsay Graham that year (paraphrasing here), “He’s for gay rights. He’s pro-abortion. He wants to ban handguns. He cheated on his wife, got kicked out of his house, and moved in with two gay guys and a Shih Tzu. Is that South Carolina values?”
If Rudy runs and somehow makes it out of New Hampshire, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear Sanders’ observation invoked by Rudy’s primary opponents or their operatives.
All of that said, perhaps a candidacy could bump his speaking fees back up to where they were post-9/11.
By Stephanie Doctrow, RP Staff, on Tue Jun 21, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET
Future New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson just joined the world of Twitter. And though she’s only tweeting fellow NYT staffers so far, she looks like she knows what she’s doing! [NY Magazine]
Speaking of social networking… Do you think it’s time to deactivate that Facebook page? Good Magazine talks you through the decision in flow-chart form. [Good Magazine]
A new survey from the Pew Institute reports that Facebook users are more politically active. [Pew Institute]
And this is why technology is getting to be a problem. A town in India recently renamed itself snapdeal.com. No, we’re not making this up! [Time]
Stephen Colbert gave the commencement speech for Northwestern University’s spring graduation ceremony. One of his jewels of wisdom: ““I am not here to talk about me. I am here to inspire you by talking about me.” [Chicago Sun Times]
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Jun 17, 2011 at 12:30 PM ET
So, I get my big break on radio, and my celebrity guest doesn’t show up.
I won’t pull a Letterman, because John McCain had a good excuse — he had an unexpected vote — and he promises to join us in a few weeks.
But we still had a great show, featuring economist Robert Shapiro and Jennifer Duffy of The Cook Report. Rob delivers one of the most cogent and simple explanations of the impact of a national credit default — it is worth the whole show.
And if you listen until the end, you will witness my coughing attack. Live radio, eh?
No Labels is a new grassroots movement of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who are united in the belief that we do not have to give up our labels, merely put them aside to do what’s best for America. No Labels Radio will offer a weekly dose of news and interviews with the policymakers who are working to find bipartisan answers to the otherwise intractable problems our country faces.
No, Anthony Weiner’s resignation wasn’t inevitable.
A majority of general election voters polled in his district didn’t want him to resign, and so he probably could’ve survived the primary, unless further damaging revelations came to light.
Was it “fair” that party leaders pushed him to resign? Depends what the definition of “fair” is. First, Weiner’s trailblazing hurt him. Cheating? So passe. Cheating with best friend’s wife (as an evangelical Christian pol)? Cheating with hookers (as an evangelical Christian pol)? Foot tapping in airport restrooms? Dirty IMs with 16 year-old House pages? It all feels so ’00s.
But DM-ing crotch-shots! Now there’s something new! Appalling!
The fact is that Anthony Weiner wasn’t pushed out so much for the sexts. Barney Frank used a male prostitute who then ran an escort service out of Frank’s apartment. Frank survived because his colleagues respected his intellect, work ethic, and legislative prowess.
And of course, most Democrats staunchly defended President Clinton during impeachment because of his policy and political brilliance, the depth of his relationships, and consistently strong job approval ratings with the public.
Weiner, however, was the prototypical show horse — first in line and quick with a quip when there was a camera around, but essentially absent from the legislative process. Many of his colleagues found him insufferable. More than anything, I think that explains his lack of defenders in recent days — a lack of support that led to his resignation.
By Stephanie Doctrow, RP Staff, on Tue Jun 14, 2011 at 10:00 AM ET
What are people making of Sarah Palin’s recently released emails? Pretty much nothing. [NY Magazine]
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords just released her first public photos since she was shot at an Arizona constituent event in January, in an effort to prevent the release of paparazzi photos. Her chief of staff says she may be released from the hospital before the end of the month. [Poynter Institute]
Twitter didn’t just create a new kind of political scandal, it also created this year’s version of the emoticon: the hashtag. #awesome [NY Times]
Remember WikiLeaks? Even though Julian Assange isn’t splashed across the news anymore, the website still affects how we get our political information. [CNN]
Facebook is awesome, but there’s certain virtual behaviors that have no place in real life. Example: don’t show random people your photos and ask them if they want to comment. [BuzzFeed]
By Stephanie Doctrow, RP Staff, on Fri Jun 10, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET
On the night of June 3, Indiana University student Lauren Spierer went missing. The 20-year-old left a local sports bar, and never made it back to her apartment just blocks away. Lauren, a New York native, has a life-threatening heart condition called Long QT Syndrome that can be fatal without medication. The search for Lauren is still ongoing, but thanks to the power of social media, people all over the country are getting involved and spreading the word.
The news of Lauren’s disappearance shook the entire IU campus. Even though my friends and I don’t know Lauren personally, we’re all Hoosiers– the same thing could have happened to us. So my friends at the School of Journalism did what they do best: they started reporting. The Indiana Daily Student website provides constant updates on the search for Lauren, both for the Bloomington community and for those of us who are too far away to help in person.
But something even bigger happened– Facebook and Twitter feeds exploded within hours with information about when and where Lauren was last seen, what she was wearing, and what people could do to help. Lauren’s friends started a Facebook page to spread information across the country, which now has more than 26,000 members.
Twitter, which many considered to be a passing fad, has become one of the leading sources of up-to-date information about the search. The @NewsOnLaurenS Twitter account has more than 12,000 followers across the country, as of Wednesday. The page tweets updates each time the police releases new information. The account also tweets information about the meeting time and location of volunteer search parties. Thanks to national exposure, Wednesday’s search party had more than 250 volunteers. #FindLauren is a trending topic on Twitter, and celebrities like Zooey Deschanel and Ryan Seacrest have used their star power to spread the word.
The national exposure that social media provides ensures that people across the country will get involved in the search for Lauren, whether they’re donating their time, money, or awareness. This sad occurrence also proves that Twitter doesn’t just perpetuate fake scandals like Weinergate, it can serve a bigger purpose: keeping people informed and united in times of trouble.
It’s important to keep spreading the word, and more importantly, to help. If you’re near Bloomington, follow @NewsOnLaurenS for information about search parties each day. Or, you can go to the IU Hillel website to donate money to the search committee. If you have tips, call the Bloomington Police Department at 812-339-4477.
As part of his role as a member of Politico’s Arena, contributing RP Jeff Smith was asked whether or not Presidential contender Michele Bachmann could survive a series of gaffes over the past year, including stating that the Revolutionary War began in Concord, N.H. rather than Concord, Mass.
