Ron Paul meets mayhem at morning campaign stop
Tensions were high at Ron Paul’s first campaign stop in Manchester, New Hampshire, today, a day before the state votes in its first-in-the-nation Republican primary. At a breakfast visit to Moe Joe’s Family Restaurant, few actual primary voters were in attendance. Instead, the restaurant was packed with a group of a hundred high school students from Franklin, Massachusetts (hometown of U.S. Sen. Scott Brown), out-of-state activists from the nonpartisan Americans Elect, more than a hundred journalists, fringe candidate Vermin Supreme, and a convertible with two people in pig costumes promoting the website www.taxmeat.com.
It proved a combustible mix for a tiny space. Prior to Paul’s arrival, a teacher from the Massachusetts high school dressed down about four dozen journalists as if they’d been caught shooting spitballs or smoking in the bathroom. “You’re going to ruin it for all these kids,” he shouted.
Television cameras on tripods and reporters standing in front of his breakfasting students would spoil their view of the Texas congressman when he arrived, the teacher said. He threatened to pack the kids back on their two buses and leave if the reporters didn’t heed his plea.
They didn’t. When Paul arrived he was swarmed by a group of nearly 30 television cameras and photographers. After spending 15 minutes trying to push his way through the media hordes to greet Massachusetts residents who weren’t old enough to vote anyway, Paul gave up and fled back to his black Chevrolet Suburbans, accompanied by a phalanx of aides and burly security men.
In the parking lot he was met by Vermin Supreme, a perennial fringe candidate who is running on a platform of mandatory tooth-brushing and ponies for all. Supreme, wearing multiple neckties and a rubber boot on his head, taunted Paul. “Ron Paul is a monster,” he shouted into his megaphone.
Supreme stood in front of Paul’s convoy as it tried to exit the parking lot. “Where does Ron Paul stand on zombie preparedness?” he said, as dozens of television cameras rolled. “Come on, Ron Paul, you don’t want to run me over, that would be bad press.”
Paul’s campaign put out a statement about the media scrum:
Santorum’s blinking problem
Insurgent Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum might have a blinking problem, according to an analysis by a research associate at the University of Minnesota.
Eric Ostermeier, a political scientist who writes the non-partisan Smart Politics blog, said that Santorum blinked at more than twice the rate of the rest of the Republican field during Saturday night’s ABC News presidential debate in Manchester.
’While research may not be settled regarding whether people who lie blink more often than those who tell the truth, potential voters are no doubt more at ease with a candidate who looks them straight in the eyes and does not pepper their speech with repetitive non-verbal tics,” Ostermeier wrote.
Smart Politics counted 2,284 on-camera blinks when candidates were speaking at the ABC debate, and Santorum accounted for 35 percent of them.
Santorum, who spoke for 12 minutes and 55 seconds in Saturday’s debate, blinked 793 times while delivering verbal remarks, or 61.4 times per minute — much higher than the average person’s rate of approximately 20-25 times per minute. The rest of the GOP field blinked 1,491 times, or just 27.8 times per minute of speech.
Santorum eclipsed the 100-blink mark during three of his responses and also frequently displayed a non-verbal tic of looking down and to his right while delivering answers to the moderator or responding to statements made by other candidates.
It’s ironic that someone with such ideological and religious blinkers on blinks so much. If it is true that blinking indicates lying, I find it encouraging that on some level Santorum knows that his ideological propoganda does not square with reality I think this article has really nailed something that has been bugging me about Santorum — I never get a sense of integrity from him, he gives me the impression of an eight year old boasting about the dinasour in his back yard. Definitely not presidential material.
Gingrich sheds doubt on Romney’s business past
Newt Gingrich raised questions about Mitt Romney’s private sector past at two back-to-back debates over the weekend in New Hampshire, returning to an allegation he made last month that Mitt Romney made a fortune at Bain by “bankrupting companies and laying off employees.”
A new report by the New York Times, Gingrich said, showed that Bain, the private equity firm co-founded by Romney, had “looted” one particular company (although it turns out he was actually referring to a Reuters story, written by Andy Sullivan and Greg Roumeliotis, about Bain’s investment in a Kansas City steel mill).
At Saturday night’s debate, moderator George Stephanopoulos asked Gingrich to address a new, “very scathing attack” by a pro-Gingrich Super PAC against Romney’s work at Bain Capital, the private equity firm he co-founded. The video, Stephanopoulos said, calls Romney’s “tenure ‘a story of greed’…saying that Bain made spectacular profits by ‘stripping American businesses of assets, selling everything to the highest bidder and often killing jobs for big financial rewards.’”
Gingrich said that while he is “very much for free enterprise,” he’s less “enamored of a Wall Street model where you can flip companies, you can go in and have leveraged buyouts, you can basically take out all the money, leaving behind the workers.”
“Is that the Bain model?” asked Stephanopoulos.
“You have to look at the New York Times coverage of one particular company,” he said.
This is Romney’s idea of free markets. Profits before people.
162 New Hampshire visits later, Huntsman hopes for late surge
Jon Huntsman Jr. has dedicated his entire campaign to doing well in New Hampshire. That’s meant multiple visits to small places like the northern town of Littleton, pop. 6,000, where Huntsman appeared for a photo opportunity at the local diner.
Unfortunately for Huntsman there were only four people (reporters aside) at the restaurant when he arrived — and none of them knew he was coming. One couple waved off his approach, saying, “We’re from Vermont.”
The second couple, John and Arlyne Kimball, had attended a Huntsman event earlier in the campaign in the nearby town of Whitefield and were annoyed that Huntsman had interrupted Arlyne in the midst of a question there about the Federal Reserve.
“He cut her off quickly,” Jack Kimball said. Both Kimballs appreciated Huntsman sitting at their table to hear their views, but say they’re backing Ron Paul.
Later in the day in North Haverhill, at his 162nd New Hampshire event, Huntsman predicted a very late surge for his candidacy. According to the former Utah governor, voters will say to themselves, “I’ve got to make a choice here, who actually has the background, the temperament to bring Americans together? I’ve enjoyed the entertainment, it’s done, now it’s time to make a choice.”
Huntsman is remaining optimistic. He told the audience that he was polling third in the state. “I’m looking forward to Wednesday morning and waking up and reading that the people of New Hampshire have upended conventional wisdom once again,” he said.
Jon Huntman’s daughters made the bad video that was attributed to a Ron Paul supporter. First of all, how did some random person get such intimate footage of the huntsman family, unless the random person IS in Huntsman’s family? Second of all, Abby, the same daughter who was looking guilty on Fox News, mistakenly admitted it on the huntsman site forum (thinking it was a private thread when it was actually public lol.) http://imgur.com/a/Jw679 and also http://orinje.com/threads/430416-The-pau lbots-are-going-crazy-with-our-video . Thirdly, an independent web company investigated, came to the conclusion that the video was posted from Huntsman’s campaign servers, and then explained why pretty clearly. http://images.politico.com/global/2012/0 1/cando_com_analysis.html I actually can’t believe it. This is so slimy and underhanded. Well folks, this is the kind of person who is the status quo politician.
RuPaul to Republicans — don’t be a drag
Drag queen RuPaul crashed New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary scene on Saturday to clear up a possible case of mistaken identity for voters who might not have been paying close attention.
Most would not mistake the notorious celebrity — singer, actor, reality TV star and the first drag queen supermodel — for Ron Paul, the crusty, 76-year-old Congressman and former obstetrician. But just in case…
“I am NOT Ron Paul, and I’m not running for President!” RuPaul exclaimed during a high-energy visit to the tiny Red Arrow Diner in downtown Manchester, which has hosted more than its fair share of celebrities and political luminaries. A large number of local gays and lesbians, as well as adoring fans of all stripes, came out for the occasion.
“Contrary to recent reports, I did not come in third in the Iowa caucus. I am not even a member of the Republican Party. But I am a proud American,” he said. “You better vote!”
RuPaul was not in drag on Saturday, but looked spry in a stylish teal, double-breasted suit and black fisherman’s cap.
“I do have a message for Ron Paul, and to all the Republican candidates,” said RuPaul, 51. “If you can’t love yourself, how the HELL are you going to love somebody else?”
The question that left Newt Gingrich speechless — briefly — in New Hampshire
A young New Hampshire voter left Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, 68, speechless on Thursday night when he essentially confronted the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives — and other older voters in the room — with their mortality.
“I’m curious what hope you can give America in these dire times,” the 22-year-old man asked. “I know that many people in this room are on their way out. I say that in a respectful way — that in maybe ten years a lot of these people in this room will have passed away.”
“Don’t try to defend that [comment] because this could get worse,” Gingrich said at a campaign event in Meredith as the crowd gasped, laughed and applauded the young voter’s remarks.
But the man continued. “I noticed that in my age bracket no one cares about politics because it’s something for old people,” he said. “What can be done in eight years [in the White House] that will affect the life that I have yet to live, that you have already lived.”
“There are moments in this business where I am just left speechless,” said Gingrich, before going on to explain why most political issues, such as the threat of a nuclear Iran and crippling student loans, were not just an “old person’s concern.”
When calling on the next voter to ask a question, Gingrich then quipped: “Are you going to suggest anything about how soon we’re passing away?”
we need someone with gingrich’s fire to get the job done. but he needs to harness some of his rhetoric that gets him into trouble. with a sharp tongue comes controversy and reaction and those qualities can impede his goals.
i like him, but i want to see him exercise the kind of control that a president must show. he is obviously a smart man and he needs to use those smarts to bring measured and directed initiatives to governance. throwing fireballs is not helping him.
Santorum sees “harm” to children with same-sex parents
A Rick Santorum town hall meeting in New Hampshire turned heated on Thursday when the conservative candidate was asked to explain why he, personally, would be affected if same-sex marriages were legalized, and how his opposition squared with his long riff about the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The meeting ended with Santorum getting booed by much of the crowd in Concord, which included many college and high-school students, after suggesting that children raised by same-sex parents are being “harmed.”
“How does it affect you personally if two men or two women get married?” Santorum was asked at the College Convention 2012, to broad applause and cheers.
Santorum said that basic rights taken for granted by married people, such as the ability to visit their loved one in the hospital and make medical decisions on their behalf – can also be arranged for same-sex couples. “That can be done legally, through contract.”
The former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, who is coming off a surprise near-victory in this week’s Iowa caucuses, then pivoted, and went on to equate same-sex marriages to multiple marriages.
“What about three men?” he said, as jeers rang out. “If you think it’s okay for two, you have to differentiate for me why you’re not okay with three. Any two people, or any three, or four.”
Santorum is correct because he agrees with God’s teachings. Argue, rail against the truth all you want, ignore the decline of our country, even laugh and make fun of truth speakers. We all pay the price of your folly.
BTW, some of you are filled with hate. What belief system made you this way?
“Newtie” panders on local issues in New Hampshire
With less than a week until the New Hampshire primary, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich spent a full day campaigning in the state’s lightly populated North Country. While there he opened his stump speech by jumping into a local controversy over a proposed $1.1 billion plan to build a giant transmission line from the Canadian border to southern New Hampshire.
The plan, known as the Northern Pass, would connect a Quebec electricity producer with the population centers of southern New England. The plan is controversial in northern New Hampshire, which is heavily reliant on tourism, because it involves the construction of 120-foot-high towers through pristine parts of the White Mountain National Forest and surrounding forests.
“As I understand it the president has the ability to sign or not sign the document that authorizes the transmission from Quebec of energy,” Gingrich told voters in the town of Lancaster. “I would not sign an authorization that would allow large towers that would destroy the scenic beauty of northern New Hampshire.”
“I don’t think the people of the north country should be forced to suffer a loss of their income and their quality of life to deliver power to the south for Quebec power,” he added, earning a round of applause.
Gingrich had one additional sweetener for local voters. “We’re working on a proposal for veterans to develop a clinic in the north country that would allow tele-medicine to veterans in the north country,” he said.
Gingrich also drew laughs when he admitted his wife and mother sometimes called him “Newtie.”
Just love the euphemism in the second graf: “A Quebec electricity producer”. Hydro-Québec, the utility in question, produces more electricity than is used in the six New England states has a whole!
Romney quizzed by Occupy protesters at N.H. town hall meeting
Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney got off to an awkward start back in New Hampshire on Wednesday when the first question he took at a town hall meeting was from an Occupy protester.
Fresh off his narrow win in Iowa, Romney was making his first campaign appearance ahead of the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 10 when the questioner – who said he was from both the Occupy New Hampshire and Occupy Boston protest groups against economic inequality – raised his hand and asked a question about corporate greed.
“You have said that corporations are people, but in the last two years corporate profits have surged to record highs directly at the expense of wages,” the man said. “It seems that the U.S. is a great place to be a corporation, but increasingly a desperate place to live and work.”
“Where do you think corporations’ profit goes?” Romney shot back at the protester, who responded that corporations either retain it or it goes to shareholders, “the one percent of Americans who own 90 percent of the stocks.”
“Now, let’s get the facts,” Romney said, before explaining that corporate dividends don’t just go to the “1 percent” shareholders, but also people who have pensions.
“When the business has profit it can do good things. Give it to the shareholders and grow the enterprise and, and by the way, the only way it can hire people is if it grows the enterprise.”
Whine, whine, whine. Everyone complains about “evil corporations” exporting jobs to China while they buy Chinese made crap at Walmart because it’s cheap. If you truly want jobs to remain in the USA, STOP BUYING CHINESE JUNK. You make the choice. It’s YOU who force the “evil corporations” to export jobs to China. Short economic lesson – corporations are in business to make MONEY; if they don’t make money they DIE! Realize also, that these corporations are the basis for your 401K/IRA. YOU are the reason that hard working Americans are out of work. Romney’s right.
I’m sick of you idiot wall street protesters. You idiots are the very reason that I cannot even buy decent wheel bearings made in the USA. Get a job and quit costing us workers money to clean up the mess where you protest! I’m sick of supporting you b-st-rds and those of your ilk.
Paul trumpets small-town newspaper endorsements in N.H.
In a tight campaign, even the smallest bit of good news counts. Ron Paul’s campaign is claiming three recent newspaper endorsements in New Hampshire’s scarcely populated “north country.” A local newspaper chain that owns weeklies in Littleton (pop. 6,000), Lancaster (pop. 3,300) and Berlin (pop. 9,300) decided to back the Texan following his third place finish in Iowa.
“[Paul's] prediction that the United States can no longer afford the economic cost of our overseas commitments makes many Republicans uncomfortable, possibly by the very truth of the assertion,” the editors of the Salmon Press wrote.
“Powerful leaders like Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan change the political landscape,” the editors concluded. “This is what Ron Paul would do for our country and why we support him.”
McCain defeated Romney in this area of the state in 2008, though Romney has campaigned several times in the region during this election.
Meanwhile Newt Gingrich took out a full-page ad in the New Hampshire Union-Leader, the state’s largest daily, calling Romney a “timid Massachusetts moderate.” It’s an odd media buy given that the Union-Leader, which endorsed Gingrich, is already attacking Romney nearly every day–sometimes in front-page editorials.
Ron Paul and his wife Carol leave the stage after addressing supporters at his Iowa Caucus night rally in Ankeny, Iowa, January 3, 2012. REUTERS/Joshua Lott
WOW! Phil Donahue totally blows the lid off of the establishment and it’s media’s anti-Ron Paul fear-mongering conspiracy! http://www.examiner.com/conspiracy-in-de nver/donahue-questions-government-and-me dia-fear-mongering-conspiracy
Ron Paul a 12 term congressman whom has NEVER ONCE voted to increase taxes, has had consistent policy positions from the start. The other candidates simply say what the voters want to hear. Ron Paul warned us about the housing bubble, the debt crisis, the collapse of the US dollar, the high employment and recessions; basically, the entire collapse of our economy. He is the only candidate who can get us out of our mess.
Ron Paul is a patriot who has honorably served his country as a flight surgeon, defends both the constitution and civil liberties, and is for peace and prosperity. Paul has the wisdom, foresight, honesty and integrity to be president.
Mitt Romney does not where he stands on any issue; Michelle Bachmann is just very angry; Rick Perry does not know very much; John Huntsman has worked for Democrats for many years; Rick Santorum is an extremist; and Newt Gingrich is philosophically unanchored, an unstable element.
America Needs Ron Paul.