FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL 🛫🌍📺📽️🏈. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'
Beautiful Stockholm at night, looking west towards Gamla Stan
Newt Gingrich appeared on Greta Van Sustern's "On the Record" TV show on Tuesday night, September 25th, and opined on all manner of things, most notably, Obama's curious speech before the United Nations General Assembly, his continued use of "the video" as an excuse for what happened to four Americans being murdered in Libya, inc. our Ambassador, his public snub of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, and what Mitt Romney needs to do for the rest of the 2012 campaign.
Long story short:Newt Gingrich and many other Americans believe that actions STILL speak louder than words, so using that as your guide, President Obama has decided that running for re-election as president and appearing on various TV chat shows where he will get softballs lobbed at him, is more important than actually acting doing the duties expected of a U.S. president.
He is not going to worry what high-minded people think, he's going after the yentas!
Which is why he is the first sitting U.S. president in over twenty years to come to the U.N. for this annual event and NOT actually meet any representatives from other countries.
He's left that task to Secretary of State HillaryClinton.
Newt Gingrich campaign video: Newt Gingrich discusses "the Facts and Florida" on his campaign bus with Greta Van Sustern of Fox News. January 28, 2012. http://youtu.be/mpOg027vWp4
National and Florida Mainstream Media reach unanimity: Undecided voters, Early voters, Hispanic voters, Anglo voters, I-4 voters and Older voters "may hold key" to 2012 Florida GOP Presidential Primary."
Gee, thanks for clearing that up!
Who did they leave out, left-handed blue-eyed Veterans?
Last weekend I watched Meet the Press for the first time in a long time when it first airs instead of the early morning encore on MSNBC.
It was an embarrassing spectacle that I think would've made the late Tim Russert fume, since more than anything, he liked genuine competition! That alone separates him from what seems to be the majority of the American MSM in the year 2012.
Meet the Press played the role of elite Beltway MSM and Obama-backer to the nth degree, had guests struggle to out-do one another in their predictions of their dread of Newt Gingrich as nominee -less-than-24 hours after he won the South Carolina primary.
The Republican National Convention in Tampa isn't until the end of August, so how about taking a chill pill on the forecasting and simply let the process play itself out instead of constantly gazing into your crystal ball?
But in the year 2012, the MSM don't want to leave the elections results up to mere voters.
(And really, despite all the undue attention he's received of late because he used to be a member, the last time I checked, nobody in Florida was saying how much they missed seeing smarmy Joe Scarborough in Congress.
And honestly, for what it's worth, I don't know a single person who watches his MSNBC show due to its smug shallowness, even fair-minded liberals I know.
They're either watching C-SPAN or driving to work or on a train to work somewhere.
MSNBC's programming is like a well-appointed tree-house, except the kids that nobody on the block likes have it in their backyard, so nobody wants to be in it save the unpopular kids who are eager to be there under any circumstances, and who thus try to make it seem more important than it is It's actually pretty funny, but unintentionally so.)
And did I mention yet that the MTP telecast, airing the day after South Carolina's primary and in advance of the Florida primary, had ZERO guests on from South Carolina or Florida?
Really.
The roles that once upon a time under Tim Russert might've seen then-Miami Herald political editor Tom Fiedler or someone from The State newspaper on, dispensing some carefully-rehearsed nugget of insight for the rest of the country to make sense of, instead had dopey Katy Kay of BBC America on as a guest, a past target of much-deserved criticism here on the blog.
Kay, who from what I have seen and heard of her in the many, many years since she was first stationed over here -and used to be on The Diane Rehm Show on WAMU a little too much when I listened to her show everyday at work in Washington- has seemingly NOT challenged the Conventional Wisdom since she took her A-Levels.
She hardly ever says anything that is not entirely predictable based upon her past.
If you can believe this, after only two states had participated, and with more absentee ballot requests from Florida than all the cast votes in Iowa and New Hampshire combined, David Gregory and his guests actually raised the issue of "favorite son" candidates and "brokered conventions."
Talk about putting the cart before the horse... Jesus, it's not even the end of January!
You can just imagine what they would say as football analysts at halftime.
Yes, that the team leading by a field goal at the half is the "inevitable" winner.
But there's a reason we play four quarters in a game not two, especially for the Super Bowl of U.S. politics.
Not surprisingly, the assembled geniuses on the set could NEVER quite explain why GOP voters in upcoming states, especially those who are unhappy with the establishment of both parties, would find voting for an establishment favorite son candidate a better alternative than voting for someone who is, you know, ACTUALLY running for President.
It seems counter-intuitive, right, but they never explained.
And that's what passes for news analysis these days!
The track record of the Beltway-based GOP Establishment that Mitt Romney is joined-to-the hip to -or alternatively, has made a blood pact with- especially when it comes to picking congressional candidates the last few years when personal or health matters have led to 'special elections,' is NOT an encouraging sign.
But for Beltway media elites, the non-candidate is preferable to an energized and emboldened Newt Gingrich who consistently articulates why he believes fundamental social and fiscal changes will be necessary to get this country moving again, and out of its deep psychological funk.
Newt Gingrich campaign video: Sarah Palin: Newt Best Candidate to Articulate Ideas and Solutions for GOP. January 28, 2012. http://youtu.be/FTRqc9Sq-vs
Remember when one of the cherished-if-cliched notions of American journalism was the news media challenging the establishment and the-haves?
I know, I know -it's a case of collective hysterical amnesia.
Today, if David met Goliath, the MSM would not only be picking Goliath, they'd be openly rooting for him and tut-tutting David's "incivility." Then, they'd tell David that Goliath's victory was, yes, "inevitable" and he ought to just give-up. This sycophantic mentality of the news media rooting for the establishment and the-haves instead of the upstart, has been rapidly making its way into the sporting press for the past 20 years.
As I've stated here previously, you see it clearly when nationally-known TV and print sportscasters, reporters and columnists all claim they want to see some upsets before the NCAA basketball tourney actually starts, but once they have to reveal who they select to make it to the Final Four, far too many pick 'all chalk' because what they really want is the status quo to reign. Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, Ohio State... so very predictable. Like their political brethren, they can't think outside-the-box, just ask Virginia Commonwealth University.
If everything goes as expected, I'll likely have some photos and maybe even some video here on the blog tomorrow of election activities taking place here in Broward County, and maybe some other places, too.
Weather forecast hereabouts is mostly sunny with a 100% chance of the MSM raining on Newt and being eager to count him out if he doesn't win Florida tomorrow.
But if he loses, and were foolish enough to listen to the news media experts who say he should then drop out, what do we need THEM for until after the end of August? Exactly.
If you think that Mitt Romney doesn't like the national news media now, i.e. the Mainstream Media, and their questions he doesn't want to answer truthfully -the very questions that Newt Gingrich has been asking and that Romney SHOULD have had the answers for 6 years ago if he wanted to be taken seriously by me and others, but STILL DOESN'T have- wait until Romney knows that he can ignore the MSM until the Republican National Convention in Tampa Bay in seven months. Yes, sweltering late August in Florida, the sweet spot for hurricane season.
The point of this pro-Newt Gingrich ad above could hardly be clearer. The folks at the Winning Our Future PAC who support Newt Gingrich are gazing into their crystal ball and not having to break a sweat to predict that MittRomney, having been the very portrait of a liberal Republican as governor of Massachusetts, will fail to be able to contrast himself sharply enough with President Obama on a few key issues, and once they have erased that supposed difference,le déluge. The rationale of Romney candidacy disappears.
Seriously, why would you expect Obama's campaign team NOT to make a comparative ad in the future that questions Romney's bona fides, essentially asking voters who agree with the idea of Obabacare to keep the person who already thinks that way and who is already president, rather than vote for Obama Lite?
Not that this line of argument will appeal to most well-informed Independents, who by and large are leaning against Obama's re-election, or even to me, but Obama's campaign staffalready knows that I won't vote for him; I'm not his target audience. It's the number one rule of politics: know your universe.
I'm smart enough to know that Obama won't change course. But you know who are his target of those sort of ads?
Squishy middle-aged Democratic women in urban areas, esp. single Jewish women under 55. Also, under-30 singles with a college education and likely few serious financial cares. People who will once again NOT hold Obama's awful track record against him, and give him the benefit of the doubt.
And let's face it, in this country, right now, there are a lot of people who never learn their lesson, and who continue to keep making the same mistakes over and over again, and who thereby becoming willing victims.
Who do you think is watching all those seriously unfunny TV sitcoms (see CBS' show Two Broke Girls below) or who continue to patronize Jennifer Anniston's never-ending string of unfunny and cringe-worthy rom-coms that fall flat?
CBS-TV video: 2 Broke Girls: Facebook Friends. September 30, 2011. http://youtu.be/iRL0QXLFGV4 (Seriously, could the forced laughter on this video possibly be any more cringe-worthy? Last summer, one of my sisters, who has very different TV & film tastes than me, saw a preview of the show while visiting Las Vegas. She said that she was dumbfounded at how unfunny it was, yet a few people there laughed like hyenas. I'll bet I can guess who they voted for in 2008, that is, IF they voted. I can't be the only person in the country who watches the preceding CBS show, How I Met Your Mother, and then flips over to cable news or ESPN for thirty minutes while this awful show is on.)
Who? Yes, that same Obama 2012 target audience, which includes many if not most of the under-45 demo who voted for Obama in 2008 and thereby got played.
Obama's team is only too happy to take the vote of such dummies before they wise-up, knowing that he will NOT feel encumbered by norms of reasonableness or having to run again. More Obama is MORE Obama being Obama.
But a lot of people like the ones I described above will think he will be different in a second term. "He'll change" they tell themselves to allay their fears. If that's what it takes to get their vote, Obama's campaign team will find an ad that spins that faux message to snag their vote.
That's why a funny negative campaign ad like the one at the top of this post works so well -it's all-too true!
The antidote to Romney's negative campaigning is laughter, mockery and stone-cold facts
of truth.
Unfortunately, that only works when both campigns have the same resources, but here in Florida, Romney is outspending Gingrich on TV by a factor of 5:1.
-----
Almost four years later, this Saturday Night Live skit about John McCain and negative advertising is STILL funny, esp. Bill Hader's sarcastic voice!
Saturday Night Live video: McCain Approves Open.
2008 skit of Sen. McCain approving truth-enhanced negative campaign messages, with Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis, Darrell Hammond as U.S. Senator John McCain and Bill Hader as the creepy-yet-effective VO announcer.
POLITICO video: Jim Vandehei on the anti-Newt attacks. January 27, 2012 http://bcove.me/nx4mo74a
Jeffrey Lord dissects a Romney hit-job on Gingrich: Elliot Abrams' revisionist hit-job in NRO is debunked by simple facts the MSM didn't care about
Glad to see that at least someone in this country is doing their homework and fact-checking the "facts." Especially the "inconvenient" facts that the MSM is too busy to look at before throwing them out into the ether.
But first, here's the predicate:
National Review Online
Gingrich and Reagan
In the 1980s, the candidate repeatedly insulted the president.
Which led to my post of yesterday re Newt Gingrich and specifically, Rush Limbaugh's observations, and this from today, from which the video at the top of this post appeared:
POLITICO
Drudge, conservative media criticize Newt Gingrich
It’s as if the conservative media over the past 24 hours decided Gingrich is for real.
Now, here's the fact-filled retort that lays bare the lies.
The American Spectator The Spectacle blog Elliott Abrams Caught Misleading on Newt By Jeffrey Lord Posted online January 27, 2012 11:28 a.m.
As Ronald Reagan used to say: Well.
Yesterday we took note of former Reagan State Department official Elliott Abrams' piece over at NRO that went after Newt Gingrich on his relationship with Reagan. While voting regularly with Reagan as a young congressman from Georgia, Gingrich, claimed Abrams, "often spewed insulting rhetoric at Reagan, his top aides and his policies to defeat Communism." Abrams then goes on to cite " a famous floor statement Gingrich made on March 21, 1986."
Yes, The American Spectatorthat was started in Bloomington and which later moved to Arlington County, VA, just like me. In fact, for years, it was right near the Metro train station I used everyday, the Clarendon Metro, home of all those delicious Vietnamese restaurants I dearly miss, like Queen Bee. http://spectator.org/
When I lived and worked in the Evanston/Chicago area in the pre-Internet mid-1980's, I always purchased a copy of TAS (and The Washington Monthly) every month at the Chicago-Main newsstand to see stories and columns about heretofore unknown issues, long-simmering grudges and policy flights-of-fancy in Washington and the country that I didn't see elsewhere.
Not that I always agreed with everything, but just like manhattan, inc. and SPY, my two favorite magazines, which I was also a charter subscriber to, their contributors writing was so spirited and fun that, sometimes, not always, it was easier to just believe rather than to fight it.
Below, the new-and-improved version via Google Maps of the newsstand, long the best on The North Shore, that re-opened in 2001, after apparently vanishing for 8 years because of the CTA and city of Evanston being unable to get their acts together for the benefit of the area's residents. Eight years! http://www.citynewsstand.com/progressupdate.htm
CBS News video: CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley. Dean Reynolds reports on "Gingrich feeling heat from GOP Establishment." January 26, 2012. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7396509n
Bob Dole, remember him? Worst GOP Presidential nominee in memory, his chances laughed at openly by the Mainstream Media weeks BEFORE the election, now criticizes Newt Gingrich. Yes, Bob Dole, the most over-rated member of Congress of the past thirty years, not that it ever stopped his pals in the Beltway news media from the logrolling after he became a lobbyist.
Try this simple amateur detective assignment yourself. Each day ask five people who don't follow politics as deeply as you do, "Who ran against Bill Clinton in 1996?"
Give them ten seconds to answer, with no clues.
Do this for a month.
The gaping silence you hear, there's your evidence!
Yes, the same person who talked openly about "Democratic wars" in the 1976 Vice-Presidential debate.
Bob Dole.
And yet he ran for president only 16 years ago...
Just saying...
If you saw the CBS Evening News segment tonight that dealt with the Beltway's GOP Establishment falling-in behind Mitt Romney and attacking Newt Gingrich - especially the once-familiar Republican names who for years have been making lots of money from leveraging their connections!- it's not for nothing that their interview was with one of the the poster boys for the old GOP Establishment who resented Newt's tight personalconnection with younger members and who have fought the Tea Party tooth-and-nail the past two years: Bob Dole.
And did you notice that nowhere in the piece did the reporter mention how what Bob Dole did after he left office?
Lobbying. Surprise!
I listened to Rush Limbaugh for about two hours today, including when he said this...
And did you notice that nowhere in the piece did reporter Dean Reynolds mention how what Bob Dole did after he left office?
Lobbying.
Seriously, look at who these former GOP congressmen supporting Romney are... Vin Weber, Susan Molinari... A largely-forgettable Minnesota Republican and a not-too-bright-but-cute daughter of a longtime Staten Island GOP congressman, who played her feisty thirty-something Mom Congresswoman shtick to the hilt? And then some! (She later turned being cute-and-precious with a smile into a ticket to host a network TV news program -another CBS News debacle.)
NOT exactly the people who were doing the heavy lifting to make the GOP Revolution of 1994 possible. In fact, Weber retired in 1992 to... well, lobby. And after Molinari left CBS and had another kid... well, since 2001, she's been a lobbyist. What a coincidence!
Seriously, would anyone outside of New York in those pre-Internet days have ever talked about Molinari if Newt hadn't personally led the GOP takeover in 1994, when she'd been in Congress for all of two terms? In a word, no.
I was there. I knew people who knew them, some who liked them and those who didn't, all who had some degree of insight into them and their ilk. Which is why i ask you simply, quick, name one accomplishment of significance for either Weber or Molinari before 1994 that anyone has ever heard of? Exactly. Just saying...
And if you're one of those few people out there in the blogosphere who think you've heard it all and seen it all before, but didn't know about this story, which I first heard about when I lived and worked in the Washington area, you might want to consider this as a mitigating factor in Molinari's feelings about Newt Gingrich.
Hmm-m... Vin Weber -lobbyist. Susan Molinari -lobbyist. Bob Dole -lobbyist. Sort of makes you wonder why they don't form a PAC called GOP Silver Spoon Lobbyists for Romney. They don't, of course, because they don't need to as long as Mitt's Super PAC is around buying up all the air time it can swallow
Do you recall what Schieffer said after BarackObama's infamous comments in 2008 while in San Francisco about residents of Pennsylvania became public, an incident that I referenced the other day?
Fred Thompson Endorses Newt Gingrich on Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity Show, January 23, 2012. http://youtu.be/_XYzaHkpEQg
Speaking of making the case for American Exceptionalism, how great would it be to have Fred Thompson as the U.S. Secretary of State representing our interests abroad, and to know that no matter what country he visits, he is instantly recognized by both the general population on the street and the elites in power, as someone that can forcefully and articulately make the case for this country in ways that few other Americans can?
If Fred Thompson gives a foreign minister, a prime minister or some ruling general a message on behalf of the president and people of the United States instructing them that they have until a certain time to make a decision, the right decision, you DON'T have to worry about whether or not they fully understand that it's a real deadline with genuine consequences. They know.
In her Daily Mail blog post of Sunday titled, Well, what a surprise (not), Melanie Phillips quite properly fillets out-of-touch female reporters in the Beltway who WOULDN'T and WON'T let self-evident facts get in the way of their asinine predictions about Newt Gingrich & women voters, per the Marianne Gingrich contretemps of last week.
Predictably, longtime Washington Week in Review panelist Gloria Borger of CNN was among the most egregious of these disconnected talking heads for her asinine "women won't vote for Newt" comments of Thursday immediately following the debate in Charleston on CNN and then on Friday night on PBS.
All those who said the onslaught upon Gingrich by his ex-wife Marianne would leave him dead in the water, particularly among women, have been shown to be spectacularly out of touch. Gingrich actually won more women’s votes than his opponents.
She goes on to conclude that in the battle of Newt vs. Mitt,
The gladiator in question may be flawed and far from ideal in a number of respects, but if he’s the only one who can fell his opponents rather than be felled by them, he wins.
Winning Our Future video: Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins: Mitt Romney Wasn't Conservative Until He Ran For President. January 21, 2012. http://youtu.be/qvM64Wl5yNo
Being a Newt Gingrich supporter who expected last night's result- and who predicted as much to many of you weeks ago in emails- and feeling and thinking as I do, I can hardly wait until we start seeing something that's been strangely missing from campaign coverage in Florida.
What's been MIA are fact-filled articles and columns in Florida newspapers, segments on evening network TV newscasts, and pithy posts on knowing nationally-read blogs, on what Florida's GOP Establishment of elected officials and pooh-bahs who endorsed John Huntsman and Rick Perry for president -or desperately wished for Jeb Bush!- are going to be doing over the next ten days to try to rehabilitate their greatly-damaged reputation and image within the state, given how badly that has worked out for some of them.
Especially some of the unctuous ones I, well, personally dislike, many of whom have that whole Silver Spoonthing going on that makes them seem even more phony and detached from reality than you-know-who.
Will they now suck-up to and salute the GOP Beltway/Northeast Establishment and now support Mitt Romney? Well, what do you think?!!!
And speaking of Silver Spoons, or more factually, Sons of Silver Spoons, when are we going to start seeing some in-depth newspaper articles and columns in the Miami Herald, Tampa Tribune, Tampa Bay Times, Tallahassee Democrat, Orlando Sentinel -i.e. the Florida Mainstream Media that creates the state's Conventional Wisdom out of froth that's so often wrong- on what Mitt Romney supporters like Lighter-than-LiteConnie Mack the Quatro are going to ACTUALLYDO to turn around Romney's slumping prospects here?
No, not what his father, the former Florida Senator with the same name will strongly suggest, what will the young U.S. Senate wannabeQuatro himself DO?
You know, something concrete and tangible to prove that they are not all just well-known drones in the state's not-too-bright and all-too self-serving political hype machine that is also Home Sweet Home along the I-4 Corridor? Something besides just recommending that he spend more money on ads? Hmm-m...
(I mean, if Mack's really that formidable a candidate, and those polls numbers we've seen for weeks aren't just name ID numbers, as I've always argued they were, we ought to start seeing something from him right away, right? And not just in the usual places?! Me, well, as you know from my past posts, I think Mack has a glass jaw and I will NOT vote for him. I greatly prefer Adam Hasnerhands down.)
Some of us will be watching very, very carefully.
The state's journos better figure it out damn quick, because with a few exceptions I can name, it's crystal clear that the vast majority of Florida-based TV and print reporters WONT suddenly develop a spine and become responsible.
WON'T be forthright enough to question the previously-swallowed Conventional Wisdom of the Romney "Inevitability" argument," or write articles that dare to ask in their headlines "Can Connie Mack IV actually help deliver Florida for Romney, or will he fail?," there is a veritable army of print and TV reporters based in the Beltway and the Northeast U.S. that are about to start invading the Sunshine State on Monday morning to do just that, and ask questions the state's journos have largely refused to ask, despite the fact that it's low-hanging fruit indeed.
And if you think the Beltway/Northeast MSM won't take advantage of the chance to get away from cold weather for a week, forget it...
Excerpt from the iconic early 1980's Florida Dept. of Tourism TV ad - "When You Need It Bad We've Got It Good"
This was by far the most-successful tourism campaign for the state ever. When I was attending IU, there wasn't anyone I knew there who didn't know this ad and who couldn't sing or hum the jingle.
Which, naturally enough, leads to this classic that was marketing genius... every week.
CBS-TV's The Jackie Gleason Show -open (color, late 1960's) http://youtu.be/E4b_-iwJwic Yes, back when South Florida seemed magical and sophisticated to 7-year old me living in Memphis!
The Washington Post By Evelio Contreras, Marc Fisher, Kat Downs and Jon Cohen January 20, 2012 ----- Below, the everyday media world of three South Carolina voters who are avid news consumers... Prepare to see this effort copied by newspapers and TV stations across the country!
The Washington Post Polarized news market has altered the political process in South Carolina primary
By Marc Fisher January 20, 2012
LAURENS, S.C. — Once upon a time — oh, about two presidential elections ago — Dianne Belsom would get up in the morning and read the paper, taking in news stories about candidates and campaigns. Some stuff she agreed with, some she didn’t.
This morning, Belsom wakes in her splendidly restored pink Victorian on Main Street in this rural South Carolina town, makes coffee and settles in at her desktop to fire up Facebook. There on her news feed are more than 100 stories that some of her 460 friends have posted since Belsom went to bed eight hours ago.
This article accompanies a quiz on the Washington Post's website to measure the reader's daily media consumption. ----- http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics
Above, Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times on PBS'Washington Week in Review. January 20, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier
So, did you see "it" tonight, in my case, as I was doing some cleaning around the house? The "it" I refer to was Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times putting his foot firmly into his mouth via a nonsensical comment on tonight's episode of PBS'Washington Week in Review, about, of all things, the size of Newt Gingrich's Georgia congressional district in the 1990's.
Zeleny stated, among other things, in a condescending tone, that it was a "small district." WTF? Now I realize that when you're a guest on TV, even PBS, there's great pressure to sound both articulate and clever, and NOT be the anchor that drags the whole show down but...
Congrats to Zeleny, as his comment, three weeks into a new year, is already the leading candidate for the dopiest political comment of the year. Not that there won't be lots of candidates here in Florida and coast-to-coast nationally who will battle him for the title, which went unrewarded last year due to an oversight of mine -a mistakenly deleted email.
Gingrich's suburban Atlanta CD of the 1990's was the same constituent size as everyone else's in the GA delegation, per the law and per the Georgia legislature redistricting. But it was NOT the district he'd first been elected to, and he did NOT even benefit from being the House Speaker, since the district he'd formerly represented was carved-out by the Georgia legislature almost two years BEFORE the House Republicans retook the House after more than forty years in the political wilderness, when Gingrich was rewarded for his efforts by being voted Speaker after having previously been the House Minority Whip.
As a result of the 1990 United States Census, Georgia picked up an additional seat for the 1992 U.S. House elections. However, the Democratic-controlled Georgia General Assembly eliminated the district that Gingrich represented, splitting its territory among three neighboring districts. Much of the southern portion of Gingrich's district, including his home in Carrollton, was drawn into the Columbus-based 3rd District, represented by five-term Democrat Richard Ray. At the same time, the Assembly created a new, heavily Republican 6th District in Fulton and Cobb counties in the wealthy northern suburbs of Atlanta—an area that Gingrich had never represented. However, Gingrich sold his home in Carrollton and moved to Marietta in the new 6th...
(Of course, I already knew this before I double-checked my facts since I knew someone very sharp from Richard Ray's staff, a Legislative Assistant named Lee Culpepper, who, like me, was very involved with Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) activities on the Hill when Oklahoma congressman Dave McCurdy was running things. Last I heard, Lee was a lobbyist for the National Restaurant Association, and one of the top lobbyists in Washington. CongressmanRay's staff and office, friendly and whip-smart, was also one of those popular Capitol Hill offices that featured a variation of the usual state marketing device, one that never got old -free food. Ray's office was never lacking for courtesy packs of peanuts, courtesy of Georgia peanut farmers and the Georgia Peanut Commission, and as a frequent peanut eater, I can tell you without exception, they were damn good peanuts, too! Johnny Isakson, currently Georgia's junior U.S. Senator, was elected in a special election to succeed Newt as GA-6's rep after he'd resigned from Congress in 1999.)
That Zeleny would somehow imagine that the physical size of a congressional district is a measure of or has a direct correlation to... well, what exactly? He didn't make any sense before or after his comment, so was that just a brain freeze on his part, and his mouth kept going, or did he have some genius comment he'd been sitting on all week to drop on us?
If Zeleny is right about whatever this idea of his is that he never quite articulated, than by his own logic, the Congressional representatives of large urban cities that scrunch and compact Minorities together -for the sole purpose of making it next-to-impossible for anyone else to win an election, short of the incumbents's death or their imprisonment- is what exactly, suspect?
Manhattan, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Atlanta, Miami... I do so much hope that Zeleny will enlighten us as to his great idea, once he can spit it out intelligently.
Yes, the Democrats running the House of Representatives did try to pour millions into the district in order to defeat Gingrich, after all, he more than any other single individual is directly responsible for ethically-challenged Jim Wright going from Speaker of the House of Representatives to a former member of the House to, ultimately, someone charged with a crime. http://todlindberg.net/?p=20 Gingrich did have a close election or two, but he never lost once he got elected. Fact.
In case you'd forgotten whom I was talking about...
, Bernard Goldberg: NYT Reporter's 'Enchanted' Question of Obama 'Fits Our Metrosexual Times' http://youtu.be/HpN8dmRUNT8
Yes, the same powerful person who helped craft the tax laws of this country is the same person who forgot for years that he owned multiple homes, forgot to pay taxes, and who forgot... But you know what Rangell never forgot to play? The race card.
