The whole point of free speech is not to make ideas exempt from criticism but to expose them to it.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

REPUBLICAN RACE TODAY

Texas Governor Rick Perry has suspended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. This is a good thing for the Republican party and the nation.

Perry brought little to the debate and was as embarrassing to the party as Michelle Bachman with an intellect that appeared to be right up there with Dan Quayle's.

His endorsement of Newt Gingrich, in South Carolina at least is probably meaningless.

In the meantime, it turns out that Rick Santorum actually won the Iowa vote, through some hocus-pocus with some votes not being counted or turned in on time.

Newt Gingrich's ex-wife tried to put a bullet in his campaign by declaring that Newt wanted an "open marriage" with her, and his current wife Calista. The interview aired on ABC News in spite of the fact that ex-wife made the declaration in the press more than a year ago and was disappointed that nobody noticed and nobody cared, and probably nobody believed her.

Bad news for some apparently over-zealous Ron Paul supporter, who uploaded a very nasty ad against Jon Huntsman. Some are speculating that Huntsman's supporters did the video and posted it in an effort to make Paul look bad. Won't work. Paul is suing the anonymous person who posted the video.

From the Hollywood Reporter (always a pillar of journalism excellence): "The video in question purported to come from New Hampshire supporters of Paul and suggested that Huntsman, a former U.S. ambassador to China, was a "Manchurian Candidate." Paul is suing for defamation, false advertising and false designation of origin in violation of the Lanham Act in what could be an interesting lawsuit to follow."

And finally, it is apparently not just speculation that Mitt Romney has so much dough that he ran out of banks in the US and shipped some of his cash off to the Cayman Islands. Hmmm. Perfectly legal thing to do. But how will voters feel about tax-free wealth building off-shore, when they are scratching to make their tax payments which are sure to exceed Romney's self-reported 15% rate?

2 comments:

caheidelberger said...

"brought little to the debate"—that's key. Even if you're going to lose, you have to bring some new ideas, new perspectives, challenging questions. That's one great obligation of a statesman (and of us bloggers!). Perry failed to rise to that challenge.

Douglas said...

Perry's debate performance made me wonder how he and Texans thought he was qualified to be a Governor let alone a President.

Comedian's comment on Romney: Only difference between Romney and a statue of Romney is that the statue doesn't change positions.

Ron Paul seems to be the only "real" person in the whole collection and he is a bit off the deep end on some issues even if he often seems to make more sense than the rest of the micro/mini candidates.