Jeffrey Lord dissects a Romney hit-job on Gingrich: Elliot Abrams' revisionist hit-job at NRO is debunked by simple facts the MSM didn't care about

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.

By Elliott Abrams

Posted online January 25, 2012 4:00 a.m.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/289159/gingrich-and-reagan-elliott-abrams

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.

By Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen

1/26/12 8:00 AM EST 

Updated: 1/27/12 7:48 AM EST

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/72000.html

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."

Or sort of cites it. 

Read the rest of this spot-on post at:
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/01/27/elliott-abrams-caught-misleadi




Newt Gingrich campaign video: Ed Rollins: Gingrich was one of "most important players and most loyal to Ronald Reagan." January 27, 2012

http://youtu.be/SjOMMweAJ_s


Yes, The American Spectator that 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. 


That was where I first got large doses of Michael Barone's prescient insight, which he now dishes from The Washington Examiner.
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/author/michael-barone
and Real Clear Politics
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/authors/michael_barone/
and TownHall
http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbarone/
and National Review Online, where he has this piece today:

Gearing Up to Govern 
The GOP candidates are more serious about governing than is the incumbent.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/289283/gearing-govern-michael-barone

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



View Larger Map

Bob Dole, remember him? Worst GOP Presidential nominee in memory, his White House chances laughed at openly by the Mainstream Media weeks BEFORE the election, now criticizes Newt Gingrich. Another GOP Establishment lobbyist for Romney to add to his collection!

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 personal connection 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...

Coordinated Avalanche Against Newt Doesn't Match My Memory of Reagan Years
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/01/26/coordinated_avalanche_against_newt_doesn_t_match_my_memory_of_reagan_years



Dole assails Gingrich in plea to conservatives
Posted by CNN's Kevin Liptak
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/26/dole-assails-gingrich-in-plea-to-conservatives/

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.


The bitter backstory between Newt Gingrich and Romney backer, Susan Molinari
Posted by Marc Caputo on January 18, 2012
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/01/the-bitter-backstory-between-newt-gingrich-and-romney-backer-susan-molinari.html


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


Dole's comments were almost as laughable as Bob Schieffer's tonight.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57367151/schieffer-modern-american-politics-is-vulgar/?tag=cbsnewsTwoColUpperPromoArea

Do you recall what Schieffer said after Barack Obama's infamous comments in 2008 while in San Francisco about residents of Pennsylvania became public, an incident that I referenced the other day?

http://youtu.be/xNoJ0q6HrK8

Bob Schieffer said nothing about those vulgar and condescending remarks.

Say sayonara, Bob.

Just saying...
-----
I found this after writing the above but it still made me laugh nonetheless...

A question we’ve never posed and likely no one outside of CBS News has ever considered: “We wondered what Bob Schieffer thinks of all of this?” 

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2012/01/26/appalled-schieffer-blasts-vulgar-and-rude-brewer-we-re-better-people

Hallandale Beach P&Z Board unanimously REJECT The Related Groups' Beachwalk project on Intracoastal; vote is also a rejection of Bill Julian's support for it

By turns surprising and forceful, and much to the delight of the clear majority of the dozens of Hallandale Beach citizens who came to City Hall on Wednesday afternoon to oppose it, the Hallandale Beach Planning & Zoning Advisory Board unanimously REJECTED The Related Groups' Beachwalk project on the Intracoastal by a vote of 4-0.


It's also noteworthy that former HB Comm. William "Bill" Julian, a 2012 candidate for the City Commission and a longtime object of scorn and enmity on this blog for reasons that are well-known to regular readers, typically, showed the sort of VERY BAD judgment that marked his ten years on the city commission, by choosing the wrong time and the wrong place to come out in support of a 30-story-plus development project on an already gridlocked road -a block from a drawbridge no less!- that was completely out-of-scale for the area.


And this came after he prefaced his remarks by verbally patting himself on the back and engaged in revisionist history by implying that he had a been an eagle-eyed watchdog for the community, when the reality is that he was one of the most disconnected and oblivious of all of Joy Cooper's Rubber Stamp Crew while he sat up on the dais.


Julian WASN'T a watchdog by any stretch of the imagination, rather he was the proverbial Wooden Indian that just sat there and consistently said and did the wrong thing while the city continued its sad decline into incompetency and irrelevancy, even while its budget nearly doubled in six years.
(And where's the tangible proof now of any of that spending?)


Many of the people in the room who pay close attention to what goes on in this community and who are, thus, all-too-familiar with Julian's troubling history on the commission and well-known knack for making bad things worse, made a point of speaking to me in-person immediately after the public meeting or thru emails later, all asking a variation of the same thing: "What the hell was Julian thinking?"


But then one need only ask when WASN'T that the question in everyone's mind after watching him in action, even when he wasn't in action but rather in repose?
Julian is nothing if not consistent in his ability to make HB's citizen taxpayers cringe and flinch, and even occasionally recoil in horror or dismay.
And he showed why again on Wednesday.


Among the well-informed Hallandale Beach residents from all over the city who made it a point to see for themselves what the P&Z Board would do, Julian's botched effort and the Board's rejection of his points was almost as much of a reason to smile as the decision itself, which will now go the full commission for further action.


More particulars on the Beachwalk vote and how it came to be rejected, complete with photos and videos, should be up on the blog on Saturday.

The Related Group's 31-story Beachwalk project in Hallandale Beach -on the Intracoastal- goes to HB Planning & Zoning Board Wednesday at 1:30 p.m.

Above, looking east from the south sidewalk of the Intracoastal Bridge/State Road 858 over the Atlantic Intracoastal waterway, looking towards State Road A1A and the city's iconic beachball-colored water tower and the adjoining three condo towers of The Beach Club. If the Beachwalk project is approved by the Hallandale Beach City Commission in a few weeks, it would be located just south of this bridge and this particular view will never be the same. September 8, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

The Related Group's proposed 31-story Beachwalk mixed-use development project in Hallandale Beach, to be located at 2600 E. Hallandale Beach Blvd., on the south side of the Intracoastal Bridge/State Road 858, where the old Manero’s restaurant was formerly located, and across the street from Walmart, goes before the Hallandale Beach Planning & Zoning Advisory Board Wednesday at HB City Hall at 1:30 p.m.


The official name for the group behind this proposal is PRH-2600 Hallandale Beach LLC

Above, an admittedly not-so-great photo I snapped of one of the artist's depictions of the project during a Power Point presentation by attorney Debbie Orshefsky at the developer's October 11, 2011 Community Forum at the HB Cultural Center. This depiction is looking southwest from the beach/State Road A1A. The Beachwalk is on the extreme right, on the south side of the bridge. 

One of my last posts on this project -full of useful information I encourage you to read before the meeting if you never saw it the first time- was on October 3rd, 2011 titled,  October 13 Community Meeting re Beachwalk - 31-story mixed-use project at old 'Manero's' restaurant site; new gridlock-inducing plan for HB?
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/october-13-community-meeting-re.html

Wednesday's agenda is here: 
http://www.cohb.org/files/PLANNING%20AND%20ZONING%20BOARD%20AGENDAS/2012-01-25-Planning%20and%20Zoning/Agenda%20Outline%20for%202012-01-25%2013-30.htm

-----

South Florida Business Journal
Related Group buys waterfront site for 60% off
by Brian Bandell
Thursday, May 5, 2011, 3:42pm EDT -
Last Modified: Thursday, May 5, 2011, 4:20pm EDT

After handing over several of its condo projects to lenders, this time Jorge M. Perez and his Related Group are buying a property from a bank.

PRH-2600 Hallandale Beach LLC, an entity ultimately managed by the Miami-based developer, bought a Hallandale Beach site along the Intracoastal Waterway from TD Bank for $2.92 million.

Read the rest of the article at:

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2011/05/05/related-group-buys-waterfront-site.html


------

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/

http://therealdeal.com/miami/

One week from Florida GOP primary, Mainstream Media & Florida's own MSM continue to coddle Ron Paul, and NOT force him to answer self-evident questions re Florida; Ron Paul is missing-in-action

Flag image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Florida

Both the national Mainstream Media & Florida's own MSM continue to coddle Ron Paul and NOT force him to answer self-evident questions, and thus be held accountable.

Paul has not won any of the first three contests and is NOT running a serious campaign in Florida, the fourth-largest state in the country.

As I've written here a few times previously, I was not only born in Texas, I'm a direct descendant of a pioneer Texas Hill Country family that has lived there continuously for well over over 155 years.

And just as the entire country is NOT a small-scale replica of everyday life in Manhattan or Santa Monica, despite what Hollywood and Madison Avenue marketers and network TV execs may attempt to persuade us in films and in television programs and commercials, the entire country is also NOT the south suburban Houston area that is Ron Paul's own congressional district, TX-14.
Map: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=TX&district=14


Voters in Florida next Tuesday, like voters in Iowa and New Hampshire the past few weeks and the upcoming state primaries, quite reasonably believe that they're entitled to be represented by a person as president who at least ATTEMPTS to understand their unique concerns and issues, and who takes those into account when setting national policies and making important decisions.

Given that, how does Ron Paul's failure to even mount a serious effort in Florida to garner their votes, failure to even pretend to try to understand THEIR unique concerns instead of merely repeating his own, now make him a person Floridians should take seriously, now or in the future?

And isn't Paul's behavior towards Florida voters more accurately described as patronizing?

To answer my own question, yes.

So how come nobody in the traveling national press corps or Florida-based news media, print or electronic, will ask them that simple question on camera?
Sometimes, as we've learned, the absence of evidence is evidence of a sort, too, isn't it?


But you don't have to take my word for Paul's patronizing attitude toward Florida voters. 
Let me directly quote the Tampa Bay Times' Alex Leary in their Buzz politics blog today under the headline, Florida presidential primary tracker for Tuesday
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/florida-presidential-primary-tracker-tuesday

Ron Paul: No events scheduled.

Ron Paul is missing-in-action.
Res ipsa loquitur.


And when, exactly, does Ron Paul actually WIN a state primary election?

WHEN?

Name that state?

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012


That's a question that mouthy and opinionated Paul supporters can't or won't answer, for obvious reasons, so when you run into them in-person on see them on TV news segments on the cablenets or C-SPAN sounding loftier than they have any right to sound based on what's actually happened, ask them that simple question.


And tell them that after Paul has ACTUALLY WON SOMETHING, to get get back in-touch, but otherwise, stop annoying everyone with their nonsensical conspiracies about how someone who can't even win a single state presidential primary can be elected president in the year 2012. 
Sorry, it's not the 19th Century anymore. 


It's preposterous.


The truth of the matter is that Paul won't even be able to win the Texas GOP primary on April 3rd.    

Since we don't have a parliamentary system, an American president, whatever else they need to be or do, MUST be seen by both Americans and people overseas as the president of the entire country, not just the small parts of it that happen to agree with him.
And if it's not too much trouble, NOT appear to be overly-contemptuous and dismissive of other Americans.



Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton responds to Barack Obama's recorded comments at a San Francisco fundraiser about residents of small towns in Pennsylvania being "bitter." "Small towns cling to guns or religion" April 2008. http://youtu.be/xNoJ0q6HrK8
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Obama_on_smalltown_PA_Clinging_religion_guns_xenophobia.html


In my view, that's one of President Obama's chief (and unsolvable) problems -he doesn't.

Repeating that same mistake with someone else is NOT a reasonable solution to our current problems.

Pied Piper Ron Paul, go sell crazy somewhere else.
We've already got more than enough of that here in Florida.

-----
Central Florida Political Pulse politics blog of the Orlando Sentinel:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/


The Buzz politics blog of the Tampa Bay Times
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/

http://www.c-span.org/Campaign2012/

http://watchdog.net/us/tx-14

http://www.texasgop.org/


http://www.texashillcountry.com/

A thought on Fred Thompson's endorsement of Newt Gingrich; Newt will be in Coral Springs on Wednesday morning

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.



Fred Dalton Thompson's Best Movie Moments
http://youtu.be/tjXgS5lqqRQ



Arthur Branch's Final Scene -Law & Order, Season 17, Episode 22, aired May 18, 2007. http://youtu.be/RyCedhLgUYk

Melanie Phillips fillets out-of-touch female reporters in the Beltway, like Gloria Borger, who WON'T let facts get in the way of their asinine predictions about Newt Gingrich & women voters. She shoots and she scores!

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.


Phillips , author of one of my favorite books of the past 20 years, 2006's Londonistan: How Britain is Creating a Terror State Within, wrote, in part:

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.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://phillipsblog.dailymail.co.uk/2012/01/well-what-a-surprise-not.html

-----

C-SPAN video: Melanie Phillips - Londonistan. Heritage Foundation. May 10, 2006. http://youtu.be/DvgypX2-f4k
To watch a higher-quality video of this, see: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/192456-1

http://phillipsblog.dailymail.co.uk/


http://www.melaniephillips.com/


http://twitter.com/MelanieLatest

Tourists, "amateur detectives" and the curious descend on Giglio to see Costa Concordia shipwreck for themselves and opine on its future

Euronews video: Tourists, "amateur detectives" and the curious continue to descend on Giglio to see the Costa Concordia shipwreck for themselves, and opine on its future. Death toll now stands at thirteen. http://youtu.be/2ISKK6XDqTM


On Thursday I got the chance to watch Aftonbladet TV's LIVE streaming of the disaster site for about a half-hour or so, and was quite amazed at how LITTLE was actually happening in the early afternoon, their time.
It was very odd and no doubt a bit distressing for family members to observe. I emailed the URL out to some of you and would include it here but it's no longer operating.



Aftonbladet TV video: Video of the Costa Concordia and computer graphics depicting various options that may be employed to salvage and tow the ship
away to safety. January 2012.
http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/nyheter/olyckor/article14233903.ab



Euronews video: Decision on Costa Concordia salvage operation imminent. January 22, 2012. http://youtu.be/HoeoO4jR8ms


See more videos of, on and near the ship at:
http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/nyheter/olyckor/


For a discussion of how society's norms have changed since the Titanic disaster 100 years ago, see

PJTV video: Costa Concordia disaster: Women and Children First?
http://www.pjtv.com/s/G43TMNA


-----
http://www.aftonbladet.se/

Newt Gingrich's delicious win in South Carolina will soon flood Florida with Beltway reporters who will ask hard questions about state's Romney-loving GOP Establishment -unlike FL's own MSM

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 Spoon thing 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-Lite Connie Mack the Quatro are going to ACTUALLY DO 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 wannabe Quatro 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 Hasner hands 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"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxB0kjqO6SI

Old-style tourism ad rules!!


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!

A must-read! As Romney forces & GOP Establishment fear Gingrich's breakthrough in South Carolina, Wash. Post examines S.C. voters' daily media consumption for its electoral & social portent

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.

Read the rest of the article at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-south-carolina-a-window-on-an-ideologically-polarized-news-market/2012/01/11/gIQA2ygPDQ_story.html


This article accompanies a quiz on the Washington Post's website to measure the reader's daily media consumption.
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N.Y. Times reporter Jeff Zeleny's nonsensical comment re size of Newt Gingrich's GA-6 district is early leader for dopiest political comment of 2012; but it's only January and this is Florida, so...

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.


Or, to quote Wikipedia as it currently exists, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich

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. Congressman Ray'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


http://hotair.com/archives/2009/04/29/nyt-reporter-to-obama-what-is-it-about-the-office-thats-enchanted-you/

Meanwhile, it's great that as ethical misconduct and crony capitalism among Congress continues to be a troubling issue for voters of either party, Zeleny and his colleagues on the WWR panel completely ignored the spectacle of President Obama and wannabe-felon Charles Rangel together at a NYC fundraiser Thursday night.
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/obama-fundraises-once-censured-rangel/325656

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.


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http://hotair.com/