Posted on 06/01/2011 11:09:33 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
THE FRONT-RUNNER for the Republican presidential nomination, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, will formally declare his candidacy in New Hampshire today.
Romney received 17.4 per cent of intended votes in the “Real Clear Politics” average for the April 10th to May 26th period. But the Gallup polling institute calls him “the weakest front-runner in any recent Republican nomination campaign”.
Romney’s announcement has been upstaged by the antics of the former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who launched a “One Nation” roadshow wearing a black leather jacket and storming into Washington on the back of a Harley Davidson motorcycle on May 29th.
Palin’s bus, adorned with pictures of the Liberty Bell and the US constitution, will arrive in New Hampshire just in time to divert media attention from Romney.
In a May 26th Gallup poll, Palin scored almost even with Romney. Yet he may welcome a challenge from her, in the belief that Republicans will see him as a safe alternative to her erratic behaviour and gaffes.
Many analysts had written her off last winter, when she released a self-pitying video saying her adversaries committed a “blood libel” by linking her use of gun metaphors to a mass shooting in Tucson.
Palin and her family met the property magnate Donald Trump and his wife, the Slovenian-born model Melania, to eat pizza near Times Square in Manhattan on Tuesday night.
Trump recently dropped out of the contest for the Republican nomination. On a visit to Ellis Island yesterday, Palin said she and Trump discussed “trade . . . what it is we can do with China and some of these other countries that are speeding past us”.
Palin called Ellis Island “one of the symbols of course of our country, and . . . a reminder too that immigrants built this country.”
That did not, however, soften her heart towards present-day immigrants.
“The immigrants of the past, they had to literally and figuratively stand in line to become US citizens,” she said. “I’d like to see that continue.”
Palin’s bus tour has overshadowed coverage of all other Republican hopefuls. She is coy about her intentions, though her trip to New Hampshire, where the first Republican primary will take place next February, and her stated intention to visit Iowa, where a Republican straw poll will be held on August 13th, fuel speculation that she may seek the nomination.
While other candidates court media attention, Palin relies on her website, SarahPAC.com, and Fox News – which pays her $1 million annually – to convey her message of militant motherhood, patriotism and Christianity.
She refuses to release her itinerary in advance.
“I don’t think I owe anything to the mainstream media,” she told her on-air confidante, Greta Van Susteren of Fox. “I want them to have to do a little bit of work on a tour like this, and that would include not necessarily telling them beforehand where every stop’s going to be.”
Although Romney made the obligatory pilgrimage to Bible Belt Iowa last week, he has concentrated on the more sophisticated state of New Hampshire, where he owns a home, and which is contiguous to Massachusetts, the state he governed for four years.
He holds degrees in law and business from Harvard, was a successful management consultant, founded a private equity firm and was the chief executive for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah. He is regarded as non-ideological and pragmatic – characteristics also attributed to Obama.
Like the former governor of Utah, Jon Huntsman, another Republican contender, Romney is a Mormon.
As Ryan Lizza points out in the New Yorker magazine, Republicans were for health-care reform – including the “individual mandate”, which they now vehemently oppose, and ‘cap and trade’ greenhouse emissions control – before they turned against them.
Romney’s candidacy is the best illustration of this fickleness. As governor of Massachusetts, he worked with the late senator Ted Kennedy to enact health-care reform, signing a law in April 2006 that established near universal coverage in that state.
The Massachusetts law was long celebrated as an achievement. But after Obama modelled his affordable care act on Romney’s legislation, it became Romney’s greatest handicap.
LOL!--that statement is going to go over well in Iowa!
Who wrote this drivel? I mean, honestly.
Talk about damning with faint praise...
The author just couldn’t objectively describe what Mrs. Palin is doing. She HAD to sprinkle all these insipid little comments “upstaged by the antics of the former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin,” “when she released a self-pitying video” “That did not, however, soften her heart towards present-day immigrants.”
Everyone here by knows my opinion of a Palin run — but I have great respect for Mrs. Palin and this kind of yellow journalism, although par for the course, should never be allowed to stand unchallenged.
In the past, hasn’t the previous VP candidate been considered the ‘front runner’ when subsequently running for Prez?
This puzzles me.
Haven’t researched it, just going on memory.
PUKE!!! Romney will not get a vote from me, Primary or General election. He is not a Conservative by any measure of his actions...
>>In the past, hasn’t the previous VP candidate been considered the ‘front runner’ when subsequently running for Prez?<<
Not really as a rule. The current VP is usually considered to have the inside track for the nomination when the sitting president runs 8 years.
he has concentrated on the more sophisticated state of New Hampshire.”
Gag!
"Sarah Palin, who launched a “One Nation” roadshow wearing a black leather jacket and storming into Washington on the back of a Harley Davidson motorcycle"
I want to know what romney wore and what he drove when he made his obligatory pilgrimage to Bible Belt Iowa. Did he storm in, sail in, breeze into Iowa? Did he pray? bring his Bible? open it? Who was with him? who did he see? what did he eat? did he burp?
Why do we only get such details about Gov Sarah?
Looks like Palin’s getting ready for a clambake:
http://www.unionleader.com/article/20110601/NEWS0602/705269991
Oh, c’mon. Slick Willard and Emperor Zero are like identical twins. Both are confirmed Socialists, disastrous leaders and pathological liars. They also have the most deranged whackjob supporters, too, who think they’re both the Messiah.
Do YOU think Obama is "non-ideological and pragmatic"??
As Trump said. Romney is a “Stiff”.
Often “considered” times, yes, especially since 1960. Although sometimes they run and fizzle out in the primary and on a few occasions, they decline to run...
1960:
JFK (D)-had been considered almost a “de facto” VP candidate in ‘56
Nixon (R)-Sitting VP
1964:
LBJ (D) former VP, then President
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (R), lost in the primary to Goldwater
1968:
Humphrey (D)-Sitting VP
Bill Miller (R), Goldwater’s running mate in ‘64, didn’t run
1972:
Ed Muskie (D), Humphrey’s ‘68 running mate, lost in primary
1976:
Sargent Shriver (D), McGovern’s running mate, lost in primary
1980:
Bob Dole (R), Opted to run for reelection to Senate after failing to register in early primary
1984:
Mondale (D), Carter’s VP
1988:
Geraldine Ferraro (D), Mondale’s running mate, didn’t run
GHW Bush (R), Reagan’s VP
1992:
Lloyd Bentsen (D), Dukakis’s running mate, didn’t run (but got Cabinet app’t)
1996:
Dan Quayle (R), candidacy fizzled out early
2000:
Al Gore (D), Clinton’s VP
Jack Kemp (R), Dole’s ‘96 running mate, opted not to run
2004:
Joe Lieberman (D), Gore’s running mate, candidacy floated but opted out
2008:
John Edwards (D), Kerry’s running mate, lost primary
Dick Cheney (R), opted not to run
Here’s hoping he’s the front runner in the “Race to the Bottom” marathon!
Hell, no. He’s about the most ideological and NON-pragmatic President in history. If a Republican acted the way he did (albeit in opposition to his stances), the media would destroy him as a “dictator.” Pretty much what was done to the moderate, pragmatic Dubya. Contrasted with Clinton, Dubya resembles Bubba (post-1995) more than Zero (in fact, Zero’s refusal to follow the Bubba template is what will likely cost him a second term). Although Zero is like the 1993-95 Bubba, but infinitely worse.
My point exactly. :-)
he worked with the late senator Ted Kennedy
..........................................................
That should be the kiss of death for his campaign.
Any Republican who would work with Ted Kennedy isn’t fit to be called a Republican. Yes Senator Hatch, This means you.
"As governor of Massachusetts, he worked with the late senator Ted Kennedy to enact health-care reform,
signing a law in April 2006 that established near universal coverage in that state.
The Massachusetts law was long celebrated as an achievement."
What a lie and inaccurate reporting.
Massachusetts health care, previously the best in the USA,
is FINISHED in that THE PEOPLE cannot get access.
.... and Pharoah Romney fled Massachusetts.
Someone who thinks like the speechwriter who wrote Romney’s announcement drivel:
“We didn’t know what sort of a president he would make. It was a moment of crisis for our economy, and when Barack Obama came to office, we wished him well and hoped for the best.”
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view.bg?articleid=1342381&srvc=next_article
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