So Haley Barbour is fixin’ to run for President. In a sane world, his long career as a lobbyists and bagman for our Galtian Overlords would disqualify him out of hand. After all, could a lifetime Washington Insider and bold advocate of fat cats everywhere really win? Maybe. The hotline just moved him up to number three in their horse race for the GOP nomination.
The reason why is simple. The Old Nit Diddler is running in the Republican Confederate Party and as such he is in the mid to low range of crazy when it comes to possible GOP Presidential candidates. Money will flow to him and all he has to do to win any primaries is embrace the clowns from crazy town that make up the base of the Party and pander to them like hell. Haley is embracing the panderfest with gusto. Auto-attacks on everything Obama: check. Attacks on the gays: check. Attacks on the Affordable Care Act: check. Obama is a secret mooslum foreigner: check. If you have a wingnut POV that requires some pandering, it is a safe bet that Haley has some talking point to please your gullible mind.
But attacks alone will not get you elected President. You have to stand for something and Haley is standing on his “record” as a fiscal conservative who knows how to solve problems. As he told CPAC earlier this year:
“Our problem is not that we tax too little, it’s that we spend too much.”
And to prove his skills as an expert on the economy, Barbour points to his record in Mississippi:
It is his record as a governor who beat his state’s trial lawyers on tort reform, who lured industry, who balanced budgets. And more than anything else, it is the way Barbour took charge of resurrecting a state whose coastline was nearly wiped off the map by Hurricane Katrina during his second year in office. [snip]
What Barbour talks about most — and where he thinks his party needs to keep its focus — is on the economy and job creation. Lamenting that he has seen too much “root-canal Republicanism” in his time, the governor said Republicans must be clearer that spending cuts are a means to an end — economic growth — and not an end in and of themselves. [snip]
Although he concedes that Mississippi is hardly a paradise, Barbour points to the progress it has made and boasts about the jobs it has taken from other states.
“When I was a young lawyer, businesses came to Mississippi looking for strong backs and low wages,” he said in the interview. “Now they come looking for strong minds, and they’re willing to pay for it.”
The Mississippi Miracle. That is what the Old Nit Diddler is going to run on. Amazing.
Haley did admit that Mississippi is not a paradise, but then he talks up his “record” of creating jobs and attracting money to the state–all without ever backing it up with any facts. While there may be an isolated “good news” story here or there, even a slight look at the record calls into question of any mention of Mississippi and success in the same sentence. You can check list after list of State rankings. You could check the Census, or the Bureau of Labor Statistics or any other lists compiled by research groups, think tanks and the media. Time and time again Mississippi is at the bottom when that’s the worst place to be or at the top when that’s worst place to be. It leads the Nation in poverty, infant mortality, and fewest doctors per capita. Pay for teachers is low, unemployment is close to the highest in the Nation and services for many needs are almost non existent. The only places where Mississippi might “shine” are on those lists about how far a state will bend over to meet the desires of the elites.
Mississippi is a great place to be white and rich. It is a great place for the elites. It is State where you can exploit workers, damage the environment and know that the State government will look the other way. It is a low tax state and Haley’s Mississippi will do what it can to help you steal the labor of your workers to increase your profits. Hell, Mississippi is even willing to sell prisoners to private corporations just to help those companies increase their profits. Talk about a pro-business Governor! And now Haley wants to sell his Mississippi Miracle to the rest of the Nation.
His campaign has gotten off to a bumpy start. Haley has had some trouble with racial equality issues just because of his defense of white supremacists and his misspent youth in the summer of 1966 that he can no longer remember. And then this week news broke that Mississippi paid for Haley’s private jet to the CPAC conference–where the Old Nit Diddler discussed “wasteful” government spending.
Now Haley has defended his travel on the tax payers dime as his right of office. According to Time Magazine the trip cost $7,020 and other reports peg his tax payer funded flights at over $300,000 in 2010 alone. I guess when you’re the Governor of a failed and poverty ridden state like Mississippi it is good to travel like a King. And if it was just the poor slobs in Mississippi paying for Haley’s junkets I could almost look the other way. But it’s not. Mississippi is a Federal Welfare State and up to half of the cost of Haley’s travels are being covered by taxpayers from other states.
When it comes to paying Federal taxes Mississippi is dead last. No other state pays less. But when it comes to Federal spending, Mississippi is near the top, especially when you measure Federal spending in relation to the tax dollars paid. As of 2004 (the last year this comparison was made by the Tax Foundation) Mississippi collected $2.02 for every dollar paid in Federal taxes. That means that taxpayers from other states like Michigan, New York, Colorado, New Jersey and many others see their Federal taxes going to Mississippi to keep Haley flying high.
Mississippi has been mired in poverty and dysfunction for decades. Year after year money from other States is sent there to help pull folks out of poverty and year after year fat cats like Haley and his pals intercept that money and direct it to their pockets. The poor stay poor and the problems of Mississippi never end. And now Haley wants pull the rest of the Nation down to Mississippi’s level of pain. While it will be great news for our Galtian Overlords it will suck for the rest of us.
Cheers
Republican Voters
Aw, but ya know, Haley’s a good ol’ boy jes like you an’ me. He’s a good Christian man and I’d love to sit back an’ have a beer with him. ‘Asides, that fellow in the White House now’s gettin’ a little too full o’ hisself, if ya know what I mean.
Linda Featheringill
Haley is an idiot. [apologies to folks who really are IQ-challenged.] There is no way he can win a general election.
Now having said that, I must admit that I don’t understand how a number of politicians have managed to get elected. So maybe we shouldn’t depend on my analytical skills.
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Linda Featheringill:
Yeah. Idiocy is pretty much a prerequisite these days for GOP nomination, and it sure as hell hasn’t prevented them from taking too many offices.
Delia
Well, I expect he figures he can sew up the South. The poor whites will vote for him cuz he’s not the black Kenyan guy. Divide and conquer is an old game.
But I’m not sure he’ll play in the rest of the country.
Dennis G.
@Linda Featheringill:
Well, with the Republican Party taken over by Confederate dead-enders Haley has a chance. Especially if all the rest of them are bat shit crazy. It may come down to Haley, Mitt or TimPaw as the “sane” ones. But then again, the Party and movement is crazy, so any of them could win the nomination. After all the 24 percent who vote in the GOP primary believe the Earth is 6,000 years old and most likely flat (among other things).
Cheers
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Dennis G.: I asked a local judge last month “are there any sane Republicans left?” He”s actually a sane R, and he laughed. He declined to speculate, however.
Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
Politicians like Barbour can point to Mississippi and talk about what a great job Barbour has done because they just don’t give a shit about poor people or black people. I don’t know if they even really understand that such people are real. One of the defining things about sociopaths is their lack of empathy, and you have to have just about no empathy at all to look at Mississippi and somehow not care about the 50% or whatever it is who are bogged down in the worst kind of hopeless poverty this country has to give. And these people in truth do utterly lack any empathy. They see poor people and feel nothing. I kind of wonder, come to think of it, whether they even do see the poor there–or anywhere else. Either those disgusting people aren’t really there at all, aren’t really real at all, or they just don’t matter. I don’t know which is worse, and I don’t guess it matters either way. But it just stuns me that the Republican Party, a party that came to be out of hatred of slavery, a party that gave the U.S. Abraham Lincoln, Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, has fallen so far that Haley Barbour could be nominated as a Republican to be an alderman, much less governor of Mississippi or even be in the running to get the Republican nomination for the presidency. What a waste…
mikefromArlington
Great takedown of an over the top pig. The guy is boss hog reincarnated.
Cat Lady
Barbour/Bachmann 2012. Mark my words. Epic FAIL.
Yutsano
@Cat Lady: But popcorn sales alone might just save the economy.
Dennis G.
@Cat Lady:
More likely: Bachmann/Barbour 2012
Bob Loblaw
To be fair, that pretty much goes for most states these days. And the federal government.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/25/state_department_to_be_powered_by_prison_labor
As for the primary race, Haley and Newt will have to duke it out in their own separate little competition to become fat racist hick numero uno first. There can be only one.
Brazilian Rascal
You guys are missing the point.
Barbour is the perfect example of the modern GOP because he never lets his stunning idiocy get in the way of his overweening viciousness.
They are mutually reinforcing values for the current brand of conservative.
Parallel 5ths (Ionian Steel)
@Bob Loblaw: Won’t a certain Mike Huckabee have something to say about that?
General Stuck
I think Romney will likely get the nomination, and will promptly doom the goopers by causing too many evangelicals to stay home and not vote in the general. A voting bloc that is crucial for them to win. The rest, including Haley are caricatures that would not stand up under the bright lights in a fishbowl that is a presnit campaign. They are fucked coming and going, and I think they know it. The only possible viable challenge to Obama would be Jeb, and that would likely be doomed as well, for other reasons.
Steeplejack
Excellent post.
I always think of Haley Barbour as the human avatar of Foghorn Leghorn.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: I say, ah, I say there good sir. Why you be slanderin’ a good chicken’s name?
I cry foul over unwarranted attacks on fowl. Unless you’re gonna eat em
LGRooney
He won’t have to play the good ol’ boy at all. He can play the sane elder statesman, perhaps throwing out a loony line to the hay hens on occasion so they don’t get too confused. There will be the comfort of knowing in the requisite hushed terms that he is “one of them” without having to throw out the redneck red meat and he can thus play the sanity angle hoping to throw the rubes who will believe the shtick because of the R after his name.
Steeplejack
@General Stuck:
I hope you are right, Stuck, but my one bona fide Washington insider connection, an old friend from college, swears up and down that Jeb will be the out-of-the-blue Republican nominee in 2012, for murky reasons that fall into the “If I told you I’d have to kill you” zone.
ETA: Meaning I don’t know what those reasons are, not that I know them and would have to kill you. In case you were worrying about that, which I presume not. That is all.
Parallel 5ths (Ionian Steel)
@Parallel 5ths (Ionian Steel): Not that I blame you for misplacing him. All those hog-jowled crackers start to look alike after awhile.
Sly
Don’t underestimate Barbour. Anyone who can take Mississippi and turn it into an even bigger shit hole than it was seven years ago is not someone you should take lightly. When the guy shuffles off this mortal coil he’ll probably end up giving tips to the Devil on how to more efficiently torment the damned.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
“You’re built too low–the fast ones go over your head.”
Cat Lady
@Dennis G.:
Whatever, I can’t wait for the gooper debates. Can’t. Wait. Yutsie’s right – there may not be enough popcorn in the world.
General Stuck
@Steeplejack:
I don’t discount the possibility, and though I think the legacy thingy of three Bush presidencies would be a daunting challenge for Jeb to overcome, especially after his idiot brothers mess of things just 4 years ago, I am not at all certain that it couldn’t be overcome by election day. If he ran, it would be a closer contest than I would care to experience.
Chad N Freude
I’ve been thinking of moving to Costa Rica or Nicaragua, where I would be white and comparatively rich. Maybe I’ll give Mississippi a look.
Southern Beale
In a sane world, his record in Mississippi would disqualify him out of hand. Mississippi is the butt of every joke, last in everything you want to be first in and first in everything you want to be last in. And sure, like Americans really want to be reminded of Boss Hogg for four years. The stereotype of the racist, fat Southern white guy are just too entrenched in the national consciousness. I refuse to believe it’s possible for him to win the GOP primary let alone the election. The fact that Barbour is being talked about at all shows how far off the deep end the Republican Party has gone.
It will not happen. Never.
Chad N Freude
@Steeplejack: Funny. The character of Foghorn Leghorn was inspired by/based on Senator Beauregard Claghorn. The link is definitely worth following:
(Asterisks kill blockquote)
* “When I’m in New York I’ll never go the Yankee Stadium!”
* “I won’t even go to see the Giants unless a Southpaw’s pitchin’!”
* “I refuse to watch the Dodgers unless Dixie Walker’s playin!”
* “I won’t go into a room unless it’s got Southern Exposure”
* “When I got the Chicken Pox, they were Southern fried!”
* “The only plant life I have around my house is a Virginia Creeper!”
* “Son, bend down and kiss my Jefferson Davis button!”
Yutsano
@General Stuck: No way. He has to account for his miscegenation. And there is absolutely no way he can be forgiven for having a Mexican wife no matter how he tries to sugarcoat it or her. He’d never make it out of the primary. And if you don’t think the GOP would go there, remember what they did to Grandpa Walnuts’ adopted daughter.
@Chad N Freude: Costa Rica has universal health care. Just sayin’.
Bob Loblaw
@Parallel 5ths (Ionian Steel):
Huck’s more of a televangelist politician than a “modern day plantation owner” politician. Different Republican beasts.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
I think the GOP could pull it off in an attempt to show how unbiased and Latino-friendly they are. Plus isn’t Jeb’s wife a tasteful “white” Mexican rather than a “brown” Mexican? Let me check the family portrait.
General Stuck
@Yutsano:
You are probably right about the primary, at least right now. The thing about the wingnuts is, it takes at least 8 years to where being out of power and the lust for it overcomes all their other prejudices, and their wildly disparate factions bite the bullet and come together to win.
Corner Stone
@Chad N Freude:
Nicaragua maybe, but if you ever watch HGTV House Hunters Int’l you’ll know that Costa Rica es muy caro para los gringos.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: Ur link no work. U fix. And going by the complexion of his son, yeah, not gonna fly. Plus all one has to do is drop the word “Messican” and the Cavuto marks will fly like boobies.
Parallel 5ths (Ionian Steel)
@Bob Loblaw: Mmm. Yes, he is too touchy-feely. I can’t imagine him in Cool Hand Luke the way I can picture the other two.
Any man loses his spoon spends a night in the box. There’s no playing grab-ass or fighting in the building. You got a grudge against another man, you fight him Saturday afternoon. Any man playing grab-ass or fighting in the building spends a night in the box.
Zach
He’d make a horrible President for all sorts of reasons, but he was the least bad of a bad lot when it came to Governors on the Gulf during the BP spill… my respectometer for Barbour ticked up from zero to barely perceivable… and then ticked back down and for good with his racist nonsense on Citizens Councils.
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Zach:
Really? He was the least bad? When he claimed that BP was the real victim in the spill, and told people to stop ‘fearmongering’ over it because it was sabotaging Mississippi’s tourism, and then lied about oil balls appearing on the coast?
KG
@Steeplejack: the GOP doesn’t do “out of the blue” nominees. That’s just not the way they roll. To win the nomination you have to have run before and lost, it’s been that way since a long time. McCain lost in 2000, Dole lost in 1992, Bush 41 lost in 1980, Reagan in 1976, Nixon lost the general in 1960. Bush 43 and Ford seem to be the exceptions.
Nope, my money remains on Huckabee and Romney. I think it all depends on how the calendar plays out. Romney is going to win NH and NV, Huckabee is going to win IA and SC, depending on who comes in second in each of these four races, it’s likely going to be a three way race at that point, my guess is that Newt will be the third man in the race and will drop out after Super Tuesday.
George W Bush won in 2000 in large part because they cleared the field for him ahead of time. No way everyone gets out of the way for Jeb in 2012. And I just don’t see him winning in this field. He’s not bothered to lay the groundwork, and he’s been saying for too long that he’s not interested in the job.
Now, 2016, that’s a whole different story…
KG
@KG: sorry, Dole lost in 1988, and had something resembling a run in 1980
jwb
@Steeplejack: My bet’s on one of the Midwest governors (Walker, Kasich, Snyder). But I do think it’s going to be someone who is drafted into the field relatively late.
Keith
In a sane world, “his record in Mississippi” would be disqualifying in an of itself. Mississippi is a dump, always was one, and he didnt do anything to change that.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
Link works fine for me, Tone Loco. Checkity-check yourself. Here it is in plain: http://www.tvacres.com/images/west2_high_chaparral.jpg
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Your link no work! YOU FIX!
And, whatever. If the country votes for a Republican as president in 2012, what the fusilli ever. Good luck with that bullpuckey.
Chad N Freude
@Corner Stone: Sí, yo sé, pero algunas cosas que valen la pena el precio.
asiangrrlMN
Oh, and this is Jeb’s family.
FYWP. Very much so.
Upper West
Barbour praised Obama’s handling of the spill. That takes him from disgusting, cynical loathsome racist to just cynical loathsome racist.
Warren Terra
RE Mississippi, on hi blog, Krugman posted a very interesting map: US passport ownership, per capita, by state. Mississippi rather distinguishes itself.
Zach
@The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik: Exactly. He correctly stated that there was very little oil washing up in his state as news crews were running around trying to hype the problem. He worked closely with the Coast Guard rather than castigating them for not building counterproductive berms, and was generally right that the environmental impact was not as severe as many feared. Obviously it would’ve helped him to be a bit less glib about it, but then again it’s this quality that’ll make him a very entertaining candidate.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
I am nonplussed. I have personally clicked both versions and they work for me. And I have proofread both links to make sure they are correctly formed links.
Let me see if I can do a texty version: www [dot] tvacres [dot] com/images/west2_high_chaparral.jpg
Corner Stone
@Chad N Freude: Some things are worth it. Estoy d’acuerdo.
It’s crazy because I’ve spent the last 3 years learning Spanish but where I’d really like to move to is Turkey.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: OK. That worked. And, it was funny to boot. You winz!
P.S. The other links forbade me access. Dang ’em. And, since I’m in a down mood, I’ll leave y’all with this.
jwb
@asiangrrlMN: Me, too. Then I typed it in and it worked. But what’s even odder is that then the original link began working as well.
Martin
OT: Hooray! F1 is back, and McLaren doesn’t look like shit. I may have a happy.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Wow. Jeb is the ugliest one of the bunch huh?
@Corner Stone: Turkish will make your head flat. The whole vowel harmony concept just fucks up my brain to no end. It’s what became my big stumbling block learning Finnish.
J. Michael Neal
Michigan and Minnesota-Duluth are moving on to the national semis. New Hampshire is the only hope left for the eastern conferences. I remain, as ever, highly skeptical of the gaudy records the top ECAC teams put up. It was really nice watching Colorado College blowtorch BC yesterday.
Tomorrow is painful, as I root for both Notre Dame and Denver. At least I like Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson, and have since he was at Lake Superior State two decades ago. It also helps that I dislike UNH due to the annoying fans rule. I do not like Denver head coach George Gwozdecky, but they’re playing North Dakota, so it’s not a hard call to go with them.
Villago Delenda Est
Something I can agree with Haley about.
Problem is, I think we waste a lot of money on killing brown people. Haley doesn’t seem to have a problem with this.
The proof we spend too much on wars (and don’t tax the parasite overclass nearly enough) is that Bill Clinton left the deserting coward a surplus, which he promply squandered on tax cuts for the parasite overclass (his self-admitted “base”) and an unfinished somewhat justifiable war on Afghanistan and a major war crime similar to what we put Germans to death for called Iraq.
The fraud, waste, and abuse of the utterly illegal and immoral war of aggression against Iraq dwarfs anything that exists domestically, to include all the medicare/medicaid fraud perpetrated by vermin like the Frist family and the new governor of Florida. The payoffs to Dick Cheney’s Halliburton cronies for electrocuting US troops in faulty shower installations and in shitty chow alone would pay for Single Payer for everyone.
Anne Laurie
@Steeplejack:
Unfortunately, I can see that happening, because the only way our misfortunate nation will ever be free of the Bush Family Curse is if we burn the nest to the ground and sterilize any survivors. (Helloooo, Moore Award!) The question is, Jeb! having been nominated, how many Republican votes does he get? The new Repub Golden Triangle is Mean,Dumb,Crazy — Jeb!’s only got the first one, that we’ve been told.
rikyrah
Governor Foghorn Leghorn is nothing but a CAC in a suit.
period.
Anne Laurie
@asiangrrlMN:
Which one’s the
junkiesubstance abuse sufferer? The one Big Bro’s got a ninja stranglehold upon?Rathskeller
I have to disagree with some of the dismissals of Barbour here. I don’t think he’s stupid, he was pretty effective when he was RNC chair. He was an especially good fund raiser.
It’s true that Mississippi brings up the rear in most metrics, but that was true when he got there.
I don’t think he could be elected president, but I think he could be the GOP nominee.
Villago Delenda Est
@Anne Laurie:
Yeah, think that’s her in the “stranglehold”…that photo was taken in happier times than Noelle’s mug shot, where she did not look so attractive.
Villago Delenda Est
@Anne Laurie:
Yeah, think that’s her in the “stranglehold”…that photo was taken in happier times than Noelle’s mug shot, where she did not look so attractive.
Cacti
@Rathskeller:
This.
He’d play well to the base and no one else.
The campaign against him would be an endless loop of “a vote for Barbour is a vote to turn America into Mississippi.”
Random User Name
@Anne Laurie:
There’s only one way to be sure….
kdaug
@Random User Name: OK. That’s fraking awesome.
Stoled.
kdaug
If we get Bachmann/Barbour Overdrive in 2012, it will be the acid test. Who wants to give the over/under on this one?
I don’t think the 27% can carry it, but with corporate (anon) sponsorship?
Hmmm.
Pat
Mississippi is the classic example of how not educating the masses is so beneficial to politicians and corporations. It is as simple as 1 + 1 = 2, and why there is such a battle going on in Wisconsin right now. The GOP wants all the citizens to be as complacent as Mississippians. Not going to happen, motherfuckers!
Yevgraf (fka Michael)
Since Haley took a crappy state and hasn’t improved it during his term, I propose that we treat him like a wingnut would treat a nonunionized teacher in a school serving an impoverised area.
JPL
Haley’s state has higher unemployment that the national average so his running on improving the economy could be seen as hypocritical. Ah never mind, just writing that made me laugh ..
Jeb has a problem with his wife. She arrived in the country illegally and that is gonna be difficult to cover up. She also had a problem not declaring items through immigration on a trip to Europe in which she was fined. I wonder if she went to France.
Dennis G.
@Yevgraf (fka Michael):
I think you’re on to something here. If Mississippi was a school system in a sane state (like Maryland) it would have been taken over years ago and the principle fired. It is funny in a creepy way that folks like Haley want to treat teachers by a standard they can not meet themselves. Creepy, but predictable.
gene108
I think Romney wins the nomination. From what I remember of the 2008 primaries, the Republicans have a winner take all format in their primaries. That is the Republican with the most votes gets all the nominees. McCain consistently got like 33% of the vote, while others were getting 25% to 30%, therefore McCain got all the delegates from those states and sowed up the nomination early on.
I can see Romney, based on name recognition and the fact not everyone voting in the Republican primary is a 27%-er, will be able to eke out slightly more votes than the rest of the field, which is all a Republican Presidential candidate needs to do. Plus, the 27%-ers having so many options to chose from, will have their vote split, making things easier for Romney.
Hell, if McCain picked Romney as his V.P., he would’ve made the 2008 Presidential election interesting. The polls in September showed a virtual dead heat and with the financial crisis, someone like Romney with financial experience and the ability to talk coherently may have convinced a quickly panicking public that team McCain could handle the shit that was going down.
TomG
Well, I stand by my argument that the only sane Republican currently is Gary Johnson. He isn’t perfect, but he has a decent record and very little pandering. The fact that he hasn’t made up his mind for sure, AND the fact that no one seems to bring his name up when possible candidates are discusses, only serves to confirm my view.
Hell, maybe he is willing to wait till ’16 because he doesn’t want to be tainted by the awful stank of the rest of them?
Warren Terra
TomG, Huntsman seems sane. I don’t understand why he’s trying for ’12, and he’s a Mormon, which can’t help – but maybe he’s trying to position for ’16 or build name recognition for veep or eventual secretary of state.
Boudica
@gene108: I heard on NPR the other day that some states have changed from the winner take all format and therefore the Repub primary season could end up drawn out like the Dem one was in ’08.
The story talked about how Obama expected to have $1B in campaign funds and so Repubs are reluctant to enter the race knowing they would have a shorter time to fundraise and campaign against Obama.
Southern Beale
@Steeplejack:
I thought Jeb’s wife wasn’t Mexican at all, she’s Colombian or some such? Nicaraguan?
jcgrim
Please don’t think Hayley’s policy and governing shortfalls will discredit him in the south. Even here in “moderate” TN, the wingnuts here vote for 3 “G’s- guns, god and gays. And MOST important, he’s a white boy.
Cat Lady
@TomG:
This explains Johnson’s possible path to the nomination. All of the gooper winner take all primaries can’t be before April, so he can pick up the Paultard delegates here and there, if Paul doesn’t run.
The May 2 debate may not happen, sadly.
No mention of who might be “those with no shot whatsoever”. GOP FAIL.
nancydarling
@Southern Beale: I believe you are confusing her name—Columba—with her nation of origin. OTH, I could be wrong.
JPL
@nancydarling: According to wiki
Bush was born as Columba Garnica Gallo in León, Guanajuato, Mexico
This could be a problem..
Customs Infraction
In June 1999, she failed to declare the proper amount of valuables she had purchased on her trip abroad. She stated that she did not want her husband to know how much she had purchased.
Although it’s okay if you are republican.
amk
@asiangrrlMN: She looks like charlie sheeen’s horny mom in 2.5 men.
JPL
Here’s an article on Jeb’s wife..
T
link
amk
I vote that the old boat anchor will throw his chains again in the ring. He never did get over the fact that the black guy beat him.
JPL
@amk: What channel is the old guy gonna be on this morning? I haven’t checked the listings but I feel confident that he’ll make an appearance.
Ah… just looked…Fox News Sunday: Sens. McCain, Lieberman, Newt Gingrich
Jack the Second
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columba_Bush
> Bush was born as Columba Garnica Gallo in León, Guanajuato, Mexico, where she grew up and attended high school. Her parents were José María Garnica, a migrant worker, and Josefina Gallo.
I don’t know if that makes her the “white” or “brown” kind, but it probably makes her the “poor” kind, ie, the “wrong” kind.
amk
@JPL: on pox news with his eternal sidekick joementum and newt-I-screw around-because-I-so-luv-amurikka ginger.
Montysano
For all you who say Barbour is doomed, or Jeb is impossible, or Bachmann could never win, just remember: once a narrative is decided and the Mighty Wurlitzer is brought into play, anything is possible. No matter how crazy it seems to sane people, any-fucking-thing is possible. Bachmann/Barbour 2012? Sure, why not, Sean and Glenn and Rush and the others are on the job.
JPL
@Jack the Second: the poor kind that can spend $19,000 in Paris on a shopping spree and then lie to customs agents.
Zach
@gene108: “I think Romney wins the nomination.”
Perhaps. The nomination will go to whoever has the most delegates after the first wave of primaries who’s not named Palin, Huckabee, Barbour, Bachman, Cain, etc. The GOP is very good at recognizing when its more outspoken wing is going to actually have power and moving all at once behind whoever’s sufficiently inoffensive when needed. The only reason McCain was nominated was because so many folks flipped their shit when it looked as if Huckabee would win. Of course, Huckabee’s flipped on nearly everything since then so maybe he’s ok now.
HRA
Jeb’s wife not wanting to tell him how much she spent in France is no big thing. I am just as guilty of doing the same.
I just do not want to do CPR every time I buy anything costly.
I still think Jeb may end up being the candidate. The field as it stands now is like a variety of weeds to be pulled and discarded. That said I am not sure how he would play to the loons of the party.
amk
teahadists pick mittens per pew poll
http://www.sify.com/news/tea-party-supporters-name-mitt-romney-top-choice-for-2012-presidential-polls-news-international-ld1padjhjae.html
Apparently their dahlin’ batshit crazy bachmann was not included in that poll.
Bobby of Mississippi
“JACKSON — A newly formed coalition wants to know why personal individual income taxes keep rising as a percentage of total state taxes while 103 of Mississippi’s 150 largest for-profit companies paid no corporate taxes from 2007 through 2009.
Individual income taxes grew from 14 percent of total Mississippi tax collections in 1979 to 31 percent in 2009.
Meanwhile, corporate tax collections were less than 10 percent of total tax collections in 1979 and remained at that level in 2009, according to members of the Mississippi Revenue Coalition.”
Our governor will bend over backward to take care of big business and stick it to the rest of us.
To all of you who are bashing our Boss Hogg, I am in no way offended. No one deserves it more.
Starfish
Now that all you people have said bad things about Mississippi, would any of you be willing to support education there, please?
amk
@Starfish: First and foremost, Mississippians must learn how to vote for their own interests. No one else can do that for them.
Dr. Squid
Mississippi exists so Alabama can make fun of something.
gene108
@Zach:
Sad thing is Huckabee circa 2008 was the ONLY Republican talking about the problems non-wealthy people have in this country. What’s really sad about the Republican primaries is many candidates have to run away from their records, because as elected officials they may have done something terrible like Huckabee did, while governor of Arkansas.
You see Huckabee raised taxes, while governor of Arkansas. He did this because because the state Supreme Court required more funding for poorer Arkansas school districts and Huckabee wanted to close a budget shortfall. Never mind the fact he left the state with a budget surplus and improved public education.
The horrible terrible lesson from the Huckabee governorship – the shame he can never live down – is the fact that by raising taxes, he raised revenue and closed budget shortfalls and by increasing spending on education, especially in poor areas, the education results of the entire state improved.
As a Republican, a candidate must understand raising taxes never leads to anything good and increasing money spend on education, especially in poor areas, will never improve education results.
Everything you see Huckabee doing now on Fox is to atone for his sacrilegious terms as governor. May the gods of the Republican Party – Rush Limbaugh, Roger Ailes, Rubert Murdoch, etc. – have mercy on his soul.
Incoherent Dennis SGMM
Miracle Indeed:
Link
Although I’ve given up watching the talking heads I’d be willing to bet that none of them will confront Barbour with this as he takes his act nationwide.
JPL
Haley’s back yard… link
Defecating dog sparks US shootout
Two neighbours in the US state of Mississippi drew weapons and fired at each other as an argument over a defecating dog ran out of control.
Starfish
@amk: If you remember, Republican states are working to disenfranchise people who would consider voting against the status quo.
Zach
@gene108: That was what I was talking about but it’s definitely worth saying in a more extended form.
S. cerevisiae
@J. Michael Neal: How bout them Bulldogs! I will also be rooting against the evil Fighting Sue this afternoon – should be a good one but I bet Denver is tired.
Bernard
white Southerners will gladly vote for Boss Hog or any other Preacher type/Huckleberry. The Southern strategy started with George Wallace and still wins.
Louisiana is also trying to sell the prisons to private industry, Jindal, Indian redneck that he is, has payback to his “contributors.” cut education and health care is Jindal’s main goals as our “leader”.
Thank God for Mississippi!!!
white people in the South are so full of the BS. they have been voting against their own self interest since the Civil War/War of Northern Aggression!!!
People outside the South have no clue as to how “scared” of the Black man White people down here are. the Southern Whites have sold America to the Corporations so they won’t have to “support” the “other/Blacks.”
and of course, God Guns and Gays works every time!!!!
divide and conquer works!!! don’t doubt it!!!
Citizen Alan
@gene108:
Very interesting indeed — I remain convinced to this day that if Romney had been on the ticket, Obama would have been competitive in Mississippi. Anti-Mormon hysteria runs nearly as deep here as racism.
Berial
@Warren Terra: I am not surprised by the small number of passports held by Mississippians. When you are too poor to move away from here you are probably too poor to travel abroad.