David Bernstein from da Boston Phoenix

(who is a better writer than me in every way) breaks down High Pitched Rick Santorum's chances in New Hampshire if he can pull off a last minute upset in Iowa.
Well, the only thing I can dare add is that one thing that makes New Hampshire a unique presidential primary state, is that pure luck can play a big part in the outcome.
So that having been said, I have my doubts as to whether or not Rick Santorum, nasty screech and all can fill an "inside straight" at the last minute.
Of course, if Santorum did manage to finish in the money, that would just be too hilarious for words and proof positive that the AntiMitt right will vote for anyone up to and including a would be American Dictator or some random road kill over Romney.

Affirmations...

I suspect that Mitt Romney has a "life coach" who is trying to make over a cold detached & boring oligarch   into "Ronald Reagan".

So every day in as sincere a voice as he can muster, Romney must chant "I AM...Ronald Reagan, I AM...Sincere. I WAS...a Great Governor, I WILL BE a game changer as President!"

This goes on three times a day into Romney's bathroom mirror. No doubt as part of coaching process, the Former Governor of Massachusetts will be coaxed to start affecting "Gipper style" football helmets, cowboy gear or that ghod awful green plaid summer suit Reagan wore to a NATO summit in his first term.

(Ghod he looked like The Riddler...)

But on it goes with Mitt Romney, the chanting, "I AM... Ronald Reagan, I HAVE...Rock Solid Conservative Principles!"

Until one night, the life coach's audio lab gets Romney's "Sleep learning CD" mixed up and this affirmation gets piped into his ear buds "I AM...Al Smith, I WAS the First Catholic ever nominated by a major party for President!"

Apparently,

Former State Senator Scott Brown drove all the way to South Boston (I guarantee you he had to use GPS to find it) to proclaim himself The Underdog in the upcoming US Senate Race.
Yeah thass right, an Underdog with fifteen million dollars in campaign funds at his disposal, raised in less than two years and most of it from the Usual Suspects on Wall Street.
Underdog indeed.
But then, all this proves is that Brown is a fervent reader of the Chimes at Midnight, after all Humble Elias predicted last month that would try to revert to his 2010 status as the scrappy challenger.
It is a pretty brazen move and a good indicator for whoever ends up being Brown's main opponent in the general election next fall.

For sheer comedy nothing beats

watching Texas Governor Rick Perry flailing around on the ground, ineffectually snapping his fangs at passersby and stuttering imprecations against gays, women with unlocked wombs and the vast menacing saracen hordes.
Six short months ago, he was a Rightical Chic Godling, a Romulus a Titan....Now look at him?
An ass-clown's ass clown.
And all Perry did to initiate this stupendous political pratfall, was open his mouth and speak on the record.
As I've said before, in Perry we have an authentic rarity, a republican who simply too stupid to be President.
Hell, I'm not sure Rick Perry's campaign staff are sanguine about leaving the Governor alone with a box of matches at this point.
Still, ya gotta give him credit, any normal politician who ran up a string of idioitic gaffes like Rick Perry would have quit the race in tearful humiliation long ago.
Not Rick, he is stubborn in the fashion of a determined teachable, whose inexplicable and foolish willfulness is divine compensation for being born into this uncaring life.

Newt Gingrich

is calling Ron Paul an "extremist", or words to that effect.

Which is akin to Benito Mussolini calling Generalissimo Francisco Franco a "fascist pig".

Ah but two short weeks ago, Newt was trying to "Run a Campaign of Ideas" now wasn't he?

It seems to me that

if Mitt Romney carries the day next month, it is less because of his particular tactics this year and more a function of the fact that his rivals for the GOP nomination are a matchless collection of ass clowns and raving twits.
They have all had their two to six week stint as the "AntiMitt" du jour and each and every one of them have been undone by the same thing, a pronounced tendency to say whatever outrageous thing flits thru their tiny little heads all of it on the record going back a decade.
Shee-it I could beat this rabble and I'm a democrat.
Still, one thing this process has done, is that it has inexorably, and predicably, moved Mitt Romney to right just as it did in 2008.  Count on it, a  few right hooks to that glass chin of his and Mitt turns into Bourke Hickenlooper every time. Why, a mere six months ago, Mitt was running as the sensible moderate "The Grown Up" in this race and as of this weekend he has come out as a slayer of social security and a libertarian "simplifier" of gummint.
Likely though, if Romney loses next month, he'll drop this android campaign plan and simply go berserk like he did in Michigan in 2008.

The one thing on which you can rely with Mitt Romney is that he remains a hopeless amateur...

And a Very Merry Christmas to...

Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul and Donald Trump and Rick "High Pitched Rich" Santorum and Former State Senator Scott Brown and Mitch McConnell and John Boehner and Gary Johnson and Buddy Roemer and Rick Perry and Charlie Baker and all that lot.
Oh and all my friends in the local punditariat...Happy Holidays to All!

Cuz without you-all, I haven't got a blog!!


I mean shit, I'd have to go back to writing about What Is On Television Tonight, a perfectly dreadful notion in every way!

When Scott Brown is down in the polls

he seamlessly morphs into this gurgling limp wristed Joe Lieberman moderate, desperately worried about po' folks and th' welfare 'o women & chillun' everywhar.

When he is up in the polls he is the very Whore of Wall Street and Mitch McConnell's Bitch in particular....Flushed with Cash like successful streetwalker at dawn.

Remember that, as this senate campaign unfolds.

I dunno about you - all...

but I think Mitt Romney's Augustan Refusal to release his income tax return ought to be at least as big an issue as President Obama's god-damned birth certificate. 

But of course, it won't....Not with Culture Jammers like this mook on the job.

Ah Brent Bozell, class all the way, proof positive that a pedigree with the National Review is no guarantor of decorum, you know that stuff jerks like him are always demanding from liberals.

Newt Gingrich doesn't want

America to "be like Massachusetts".


Hatin' on the Commonwealth, it must be close to the New Hampshire GOP Presidential Primary....typical.

Well, Humble Elias stands foursquare for the glories of Massachusetts! Our relatively low unemployment rate (seven percent or so last I checked) allows this state to absorb ghod knows how many workers from jobless recession wracked New Hampshire...If you don't believe me, take a drive thru the parking garage at Alewife Station and count all the "Live Free or Die"license plates.
You'd think Gingrich wouldn't be so churlish as to criticize the source of many a Granite State paycheck after all....

In Memoriam, C.H.

Let the record show, that in the end, the Late Christopher Hitchens' life stood as a monument to the notion that onetime fervent Trotskyites, make the worst conservatives.
Arrogant, authoritarian, treacherous, obsequious to those above, and insolent to those below him, Hitch came to America in search of a civilization to defend, he'd say anything to anyone to save us all from the Saracen Hordes or Hilary Clinton or whatever.
He stabbed his then friend Sidney Blumenthal in the back in a vain effort to get at Bill Clinton (whom he hated with tedious predicability). Hitch legitimized Leftish Clinton hatred to such a degree he gave more than a few Beltway republicans the erroneous notion that they had limitless room to maneuver in the lead up to the President's spurious impeachment.
Then of course, he made a seamless transition to post 9-11 war hawkery a pose that made him ubiquitous on cable television and beyond.
Yes, I know, Hitch was a out and proud atheist. So is Bill Maher so was Ayn Rand, in America apostasy and unbelief can be a revenue stream if you position yourself right.
And lord knows with his war whoopery and snarkery, Chris Hitchens lived and died a well positioned brand forward public intellectual...that is to say a miserable two faced wretch of the highest order.
If there is any justice in the after life, George Orwell is working over Hitchens right now with a sock full of wet sand.

Jon Huntsman's current round of campaign commercials

up in NH has this wonderful whiny quality to them. "I'm the REAL CONSERVATIVE!! Why Not Meeeee as the Anti-Mitt? It's My Turn to Make the Cover of Newsweek!!!"
Check em' out quick because I strongly doubt Huntsman will last until Martin Luther King Day at the rate he is going.
Seriously, a Mormon can't be the Anti-Mitt...ain't gonna happen, I hate to traffick in such rough sentiments but it is the truth. Ron Paul or Buddy Roemer have a better shot at this point.
Frankly for serious connoiseurs of desperate hubris, the New Hampshire Primary has always been a feast and a banquet going back to the days when Wilbur Mills was staggering from door to door.

Kim Jong Il, the Supreme Monocrat of North Korea

is dead.

One of the abiding strengths of Marxism Leninism is what Leonid Brezhnev called "Stability of Cadres", the party's ability to replenish itself via recruitment and self selection. However one of the great weaknesses of "Stability of Cadres" is that it all comes down sooner or later to the medieval concept of Primogeniture.

North Korea, case in point....Where Kim Jong Il is duly supplanted by his youngest son Kim Jong Un, age 28.

That makes the third generation of the Kim family to rule North Korea like a ramshackle plantation.

Well, you know what they say, from Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves in just three generations.

 

I am given to think that

the GOP base dislikes Mitt Romney so very very much that they will vote for Barack Obama to spite the former Massachusetts Governor.
I mean why not?
They've countenanced far more dubious Anti-Mitts this past year, From Michelle Bachmann who is as batty as Dracula's Castle (and proud of it) to cheap Babbitish philander Herman Cain.
Right now, they are in turn, conjuring with Newt Gingrich's candidacy (whose pugnacious bluster neatly covers up the suspicion he'd shit himself loudly if he ever heard a shot fired in anger) and waiting in the wings shooting his cuffs, Ron Paul a libertarian mystic who nonetheless believes in the sanctity of the womb and the right of revealed religion to dictate terms to a free people.
Given all this mishaugas, the problem for Romney is that problem isn't going away even if he somehow cinches the nomination early and decisively.
I doubt any of these useless dingbats have the sheer guts to bolt and form a third partei (though we will hear lots of palaver about that from the punditariat over the short term believe me) but they can hang on mutter whine and curse which devalues the nomination as time goes on.
At which point, Barack start looking pretty good to all sorts of divergent cohorts...who can tell?

Newt Gingrich wants to arrest Federal Judges

who actively defy his ideological agenda should he become President.

Why stop there Newt?
Why not arrest congresspersons who obstruct your agenda, shit for that fact you could jail the portion of the electorate that did not vote for you?
But I snark, in the arid pseudo intellectual mind of the Former Speaker, one literally does not vote for candidates, one empowers via voting an entire ideology to Total Power....And lets not quibble about divorces or gays or gamey conservative payola.
***
Now...There is one observation I'd like to make here, and that is, Newt Gingrich is not anti-judiciary by nature and more than he was ant-executive when he screamed up impeachment against Bill Clinton.
What Newt opposes violently, is anything that impedes conservatives Right to Rule. Now if that means wrecking the separation of powers and creating a despotism in the process, he is fine with it so long as it is a conservative despotism.
You have to read a lot of books, immerse yourself in political science for years on end and think a great deal to come up with a public philosophy that destructive to liberty.
So much for the scholar in politics eh?

If there is a God of

Mercy and Irony and Justice in Heaven Above, then the late atheist Christopher Hitchens is arraigned before a robed & bearded Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates, even as I write this....

And just possibly, George Orwell will be waiting for him with a pipewrench in hand to prove once and for all, who was really the conscience of Western Civilization. My money is on Orwell, those Spanish Civil War vets play fer keeps.

The New Hampshire Primary

and beyond it the GOP Presidential stakes, is rapidly becoming the political equivalent of a Trencherman's Feast, I hardly know what delicacy to sample first.
Lets start with Newt Gingrich a nasty  greedy foul mouthed distempered pseudo hack who can trill on and on about "running a campaign of ideas", just as soon has he is done comparing the competition to Adolf Eichmann.
The notion that Newt (that sophomore's sophomore) can somehow reconfigure himself into a nice scholarly  unthreatening Wingnut Woodrow Wilson has Humble Elias in stitches.
That is not how he became Speaker of the House kids...count on it.
But then, in Mitt Romney, Gingrich has the almost perfect assymetrical opponent, smarmy, disengaged, toxically wealthy and passive aggressive to a fault.
If indeed Gingrich can bootstrap himself into the "AntiMitt" position then the emerging debate between these two vain cowardly shrewd and ambitious men will be extremely interesting to watch.
Or who knows, maybe Ron Paul can sneak into the money? The man is a 21st century Robespierre in every sense of the word, unlike Newt and Mitt, Ron really believes his own bullshit  a "Man must be forced to fit the plan" type if ever there was one.
I'm telling you, this is the greatest political show on earth, and sadly for personal reasons, Humble Elias can't seem to disengage to get up to NH to see any of it.
Irony, I hate it .

Congrats to Will Brownsberger

who has won the democratic nomination for State Senate in the Second Suffolk District in a special election yesterday. I've seen Will around Arlington for some time now in his capacity as Belmont's state representative (also has few Arlington precincts in his district doncha know). He is a honest man and will do well in the State Senate.
And of course, thanks to the Primate Research Center we call the Joint House Senate Redistricting Committee, my precinct in sacred inviolate Menotomy, is about to be grafted onto Will Brownsberger's old House District (largely dominated by Belmont, shitty roads and all).
So I have a front row seat (albeit on the wrong side of Route Two) on the race to replace Brownsberger in the House...Too bad I don't know squat about Belmont politics or personalities.
Yeah it is nice starting from the bottom again, thanks again to the trained anthropoids in the lege, this and casino gambling are your legacies in this session, sheer genius in both cases.

Radio Tyrant Michael Savage....

(who is as crazy as a shit house rat) has publicly offered Newt Gingrich One Million Dollars to get out of the GOP Presidential Race.
Shit Newt can make that kind of dough in an hour peddling his ass on K-Street, chump change is what that is.
However I do wanna take a moment to accuse Michael Savage of plagiarism of the lowest kind. Scroll back to the summer of 2003 or so, and you will find a Chimes at Midnight posting idly joking about how much bribery money it would cost the US taxpayer to get George Bush Jr. to resign the Presidency.
It was a joke!
But Michael Savage, having no sense of humor and no creativity proposes to enact it for real with Newt Gingrich....goddamn goniff!
Well who is Michael Savage backing anyway? Galleazzo Ciano? General Quiepo De Llano? Admiral Yamamoto?
The mind reels...

Tom Conroy has

bailed out from the democratic US Senate Primary, and endorsed Citizen Warren.

So much for Humble Elias' naive' hopes of a full and complete debate arising from said primary eh?
Money is voting early and voting often and long before the polls actually open as well...Hence Conroy couldn't compete and thus he graciously benched himself alongside Khazei and Setti Warren etc etc.
One of the things I truly detest about the current fundraising & campaign finance environment is that the flow of money, can very easily stifle debate. And that is exactly what is happening here, although to my own discredit I should have seen it coming.
That is not a rap on Citizen Warren, under the circumstances she cannot be upbraided for "seein' her opportunities and takin' em", but if we want free and fair debate, it starts with reappraising the centrality of money to the electoral process.

Forget his statesman/frontrunner pose...

Gimme the old Mitt Romney any day of the week, callow, cowardly, amateurish, desperate to win and conniving endlessly in an inept sort of way.
Like quoting off of Ann Coulter to put himself to the right of Newt Gingrich...I mean that is the Old Mitt Romney, you can smell the flopsweat a half mile away.
But that is Romney in a nutshell, the race tightens and he starts panicking and throwing clumsy haymakers, $10k bets with the semi-mongoloid Governor of Texas and then harvesting clips from Ann Coulter...and ghod knows what else before all is said and done.
Can't wait, this is the best show in town, Romney in the final weeks before a primary a clown show to put Emmett Kelly to shame.

So MItt Romney

tried to bet Rick Perry $10K that he'd never ever ever been FOR an individual healthcare mandate, before he was against it?
Honestly, is it good politics for Mitt Romney to publicly offer a big money bond on his own craven sense of opportunism?
And what kills me about this mishaugas is that Perry did the first smart thing in the last twenty years of his life, he turned down the wager.
It won't be enough to save Perry's candidacy at this point, but it will keep him out of the Texas School for Incorrigible Teachables after he bails.
This is Romney at his ugliest, flinging his money around with heedless arrogance and offering bets on subjects about which he ought to dummy up.
Amateur...there is no other word for Willard Mitt Romney.

How come I'm the last to know

That Donald Trump is thinking about running as an Independent Candidate for President next year??
The only thing that could beat for sheer hilarity this would be if Pat Paulsen rose from the dead and ran as a Vegetarian or maybe a Whig.
Still Trump is basically kidding us, he lacks the guts and the focus to run, he likes the attention his bluster gets nothing more, anyway who'd he pick for veep...Gary Busey?

If Donald Trump

can moderate a GOP Debate in Iowa, then why can't Bill Maher do likewise and the same?

Or Howard Stern for that fact?

Bill Maher is much smarter and funnier than Donald Trump, he has for example actually read the US Constitution and can relate that quaint imperiled document to today's radical conservative with ease.

Howard Stern on the other hand is much better interviewer than either Trump or Maher, put him at the moderator's table and nothing will be moderated, but we will find stuff out believe me.

To put it bluntly, Donald Trump is as thick as a brick, despite the entertainment value of his gaudy mono-mania, the only topic he can talk about authoritatively is himself, thus The Donald is a bad choice as a debate host.

Well from the looks of things, even the sky grifters and shifty mooks that comprise the GOP Field get that, thus the debate ranks are looking mighty thin. My guess is the debate itself will be cancelled before noon today.

And Romney was right to turn it down, the Former Viceroy is exactly the sort of handsome credulous fool who gets fired first on "The Apprentice".

According to the Boston Herald

Citizen Elizabeth Warren has opened up a seven point lead over Former State Senator Scott Brown, 49% to 42%.
Yipes bad news for Team Brown given that the general election is almost eleven months away.
But therein lies my admonition for the day, the election is eleven months away, the democratic primary isn't until September 2012 and a lot will happen between now and then.  Moreover, forty nine percent is a plurality not a majority, those numbers are bound to change once the media scrutiny heats up....Hell Joanie Vennochi has not yet begun to cast a pox on both their houses yet.
The most important thing to remember is that seven point deficit potentially puts Brown in UnderDog Status, which is his preferred position, an UnderDog with a seven million dollar warchest all shaken down from the elite of Wall Street.

TR

"The constitution guarantees protections to property, and we must make good that promise good. But it does not grant the right of suffrage to any corporation. The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth".

Theodore Roosevelt, 1910.

Y'know,

the Brian McGrory's of this world will go sighing into the night, insisting that this time, Mitt Romney is at peace with his "Legacy As Governor of Massachusetts".
But then news like this comes thru, to the effect that the Former Viceroy spent 100K scrubbing state databases of emails and other important indicators that his governorship really was in Massachusetts after all.
It is a popular cliche' out there, that Mitt Romney has no soul, no core beliefs, at least he cares not to share any of it with the voters.
Humble Elias though, thinks this is a misapprehension. Romney does have a very deeply held core belief, his actions above and his public statements proclaim it unambiguously.
And that is, Mitt Romney firmly believes with religious conviction that if he had been elected Governor of Colorado or Utah or Michigan or New Hampshire (all states where I think he owns property) he'd be President by now.
To an outside observer, that is a remarkably cynical notion, but given Romney's almighty opportunism, it is the local conclusion in every way.

At this point...

a motley collection of bohos, progressive activists, borderline "scientific socialists, anarchists and greying folksingers, the core of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement would seem to be the only cohort out there desperately trying to save the middle class in the USA.
The irony is killing me fuh sherrr.
During the prior prosperity, wealth was transferred to the top 2% from the Middle Class, to keep up debt was incurred, second and third mortgages rung up on residential properties.
Then the crash, credit got cut off, but the transfer of wealth continued unabated.
For better or worse the "Occupy Movement" stands athwart that process and cries "HALT!"
Why do they come to the defense of the "Babbit Bourgeoisie"?
Because for better or worse they've read enough history to realize that no democracy has ever survived without an economically healthy and politically engaged middle class.
If Mom and Dad lose their ranch house in Fort Myers Beach, it can't long before Seth loses his artist's loft by the Merrimack in Lowell.
It is as simple as that, the issues that the Occupiers are trafficking in are life and death for the American Middle Class, the politician who gets that, can ride to glory in 2012.

Jeff Jacoby adopts a prim

sorrowful tone in today's Boston Globe column with respect to Congressman Frank's alleged tart tongue.
No doubt Barney will make Jeff's phony-ass end of the year "Liberal Hate Speech" list in 2011.
Not for nothing but when FM 96.9's Michael Graham goes into one of his paranoid Muslim eliminationist frenzies, where is Jeff's sorrowful clucking tone?
Just curious...

Herman we hardly knew ye...

A month or so after Newsweek put him on the cover and dubbed him a serious contender for the GOP Presidential nomination, Herman Cain (awash in The sort of bimbo eruptions that would gratify a Mary Matalin) bails out of the race.
As the GOP field goes forward, Herman Cain will be remembered as someone who kept up such a shrieking din of tax crackpottery as to drown out any sensible discussion of the issue to the point of suppressing even the use of the "indoor voice".
Keep that in mind next summer when the republican national convention has to debate tax policy, if it all degenerates into a race to say the stupidest and craziest things, recall please what sort of candidates got all the attention & enthusiam in the previous winter.

If Cain is really bailing tomorrow

per this news item, I wonder how much his endorsement is worth?
I'm guessing, based on the specific nature of the allegations, it ain't worth much, but for purposes of building momentum and comity, it might be a nice "get" for Newt Gingrich.
Don't see how Romney is in position to grab it off...but I could be wrong.
MiGhod, a mere month ago, Cain was a front runner in some polls, the Rising Man of the Hour.
Now look at him, a busted clown with a bad taste for alleged bimbos.

Oh well we live in an era of "instant candidacies" and the downside is that you plunge as fast as you rise.

Waaaal I swan....

But the Boston Globe reports that Citizen Elizabeth Warren has pulled even with Former State Senator Scott Brown in the current round of polling.
This is after a round of crudely executed attack ads from "Brand Brown" and a series of introductory adverts from Citizen Warren's campaign.
Right now, Scott is campaigning exactly like a swollen headed rube who got himself slapped awake forcefully. He hasn't figured out how to come to grips with the challenge, but that won't last.
Warren on the other hand has made a decent impression on the basis of a few commercials and a round of coffee klatsches, likewise that won't last either.
And no one has started campaigning for real yet, huge blogging opportunities, a race for the ages, it'll make Weld-Kerry look like one of Senator Claghorn's stumblebum runs.
Of course, there are "feints within feints" here (to quote the late Frank Herbert), if Brown fades to black on election night, this might put a premium on getting a Republican elected governor in 2014 to "balance out" the state's alleged democratic tilt.
Advantage...Charlie Baker (who by all accounts wants another crack at...something)
On the other hand, Martha Coakley (currently suing the Money Changers in the Temple, the Gospel of Matthew is now "exhibit A" in the people's lawsuit) might construe vindication from a Warren victory and go staggering off on the campaing trail trying to grab off the Governorship.
So a lot of things are riding on this senate race...starting with an unending stream of "sarcastic rant driven chatter" from yours truly, Humble Elias Nugator.

Kultur Note

"Robots" are running amok in Davis Square tomorrow night...

"Live by the ABM (Anyone But Mitt)...

Die by the ABM..."

It would seem that Herman Cain's presidential campaign, which bestrode this earth liken unto a colossus a mere month ago, now hangs by a slender thread.
Cain's rapid rise and fall, in sequence with Perry's flameout and Bachmann's hour of glory, points to a larger issue within the GOP, namely the persistence of a ideological core in the republican party that would vote for a Wart Hog Pig before they'd go with Willard Mitt Romney.
How else to account for Newt Gingrich's sudden rise in the polls, the desperate need for and alternative to Romney has now finally alighted on a thrice married corruptard with a cheap mouth and a sophomore's grasp of history.
What I don't get is, why can't this core come to grips with Romney? They've certainly vopted for richer more opportunistic men in their time. And it isn't like Mitt isn't eager to promise them all free hookers in return for their votes...but no matter how much he panders and glad hands this lot dismisses him.
I suspect it is because Romney just isn't a very adept panderer, and there is no feeling of doom quite like the one engendered by an eager clean cut candidate who falls flat on his face every time he flip flops.
Thus we can be sure to hear more and more about Mitt's craven opportunism as the campaign gains momentum tracking neatly with yet another ABM driven counter candidate.
The ideological core of the GOP has simply fossilized too completely for this to play out any other way.

Mitt Romney wants to remove the "magnets"

that supposedly draw illegal immigrants to this country, like I dunno emergency room health care and the Micky D's ribwich I guess.
Of course the biggest and baddest "magnet" is a job, a shitty job to be sure, cleaning pools and or taking care of some monied slob's hapless offspring, but a job nevertheless. So if Mitt Romney really wants to drain the swamp, why not simply reclassify all those shitty jobs as closed shop positions?
The AFL-CIO will swoop down like a Klingon Bird of Prey and fill those slots up overnight with dues paying members all of them will rock solid birth certificates...problem solved no more Mexicano hedgeclippers.
Granted, the cost of a pool cleaning will increasing exponentially, but shouldn't we be willing to pay some price to keep the wogs out?
Granted this is all sheer sarcasm on Humble Elias part, but if you were to propose it to Willard's face, his poor head would probably explode because while he panders incessantly he is nonetheless bad at it.
Put two beneficial political outcomes into mutual opposition before Mitt and the explosive bolts that hold his psyche together auto-detonate every time.

Barney we hardly knew ye...

Congressman Frank throws in the towel, won't run for re-election in 2012.

Aside from being an effective exponent of liberal ideals and a fighter in the best sense of the term, Barney Frank will be missed because he had real wit.
And good rapier witticisms is in short supply in our congressional delegation these days (sorry Congressman Markey tis a truth tellin' time so it is).
Which tells you a lot as to why the local clowns among the punditariat always hated Barney Frank, he was funnier than they. Clowns always whither in the face of true wit.

Godspeed Congressman Frank you will be missed.

There is just something about Mitt Romney

that the Manchester Union Leader does not like.
Faced with his candidacy for the GOP Presidential Nomination for the second time in four years, the Union Leader airily endorsed thrice married money worshipper & notorious grouch Newt Gingrich for President.
Mitt cannot catch a break no matter how many endangered swimmers he pulls out of Lake Winnepausakee (sp).
The last time the Union Leader went for that surly divorcee' John McCain...clearly as far as Brand Romney is concerned, a pattern begins to assert itself.
As for Newt this is a good "GET" after his uncharacteristically humane response to the illegal immigration issue, the Union Leader's reach is much diminished these days but it motivates a aging cohort who vote very reliably. Assuming Gingrich can make this a tight race in New Hampshire the endorsement might be enough to tip the state in the former speaker's favor.
"Might"being the operative word here.

This seems like a good idea...

The President's re-election campaign only sells "made in America" tchotchkes.

The GOP candidates are nowhere near as consistent in their policies....surprise surprise eh?

Well it is "Black Friday" today, if you are gonna consume, at least consume in a way that puts an American Worker to Work.

Well today is a sad day in the Commonwealth I think

the Governor signed the casino gambling bill. Normally I can place great trust in Deval Patrick's judgement & personal probity, but from the bottom of my heart I wish this was one campaign promise he had broken.
But the fight goes on regardless, any well reasoned attempt to get the issue on next year's ballot will find a firm friend (for what it is worth) in "The Chimes at Midnight".
And I can only hope I am wrong about gaming being the downfall of the Commonwealth's democrats.

Oh and Mitt Romney has

officially backed down from last week's scheme to privatize the VA and thus throw Elias Nugator Sr into the tender and efficient clutches of the US Nursing Home Industry.
I love how the Former Viceroy backs down, he makes an art of insisting that he never meant what he said.

Did anyone out there really think

that the so called "Super Committee" was going to turn in a worthwhile budget plan?
I surely did not.
Even with John Kerry there making a good faith bid to ease the deficit to a soft landing.
Well what can I say...democrats compromise, republicans fantasize. 
And theese days the GOP's opposition to taxes borders on the theological....I am not sure they can even conceive of any circumstances whatsoever that would require higher revenues.
Therein lies the whole of the story.
Moreover no one seems to have been invested in this committee's success, clearly sequestration suits everyone's political calculus much better than a budget plan that spreads the pain out equally.
At the very least the Bush Tax Cuts may finally expire, although I can sense Congress will leap thru hoops of fire to preserve, protect and defend the right of rich people to evade paying their fair share of the burden.
It will be interesting to see what half assed nonsense John Boehner will dredge up to preserve the literal sanctity of those tax cuts.

Other than that, I'd like to recall the immortal words of the late William S. Burroughs:

"When you are doing business with a religious son of bitch, get it in writing! His word doesn't mean shit not with the Good Lord telling him how to screw you on a deal".

Thought for the Day

Now that he is up in the polls, I'm just waiting for Newt "Three Marriages and Counting" Gingrich to show up at a Francistown NH Middle School to eructate one of his celebrated harangues, this time on behalf of abstinence education.

And then, if the next day, Mitt Romney came to the school and one of the children asked him to clarify his sketchy views on natural selection based on the persistence of drug resistant strains of tuberculosis...that would be just too gawd damned delightful to be sure.

Robert Maginn

last seen getting his ass kicked by Shannon O'Brien in the State Treasurer's race, is Mitt Romney and Scott Brown's joint nominee to head the State Republican Committee.
Both these guys have critical races in 2012 and need someone to run interference for them at state party headquarters.
The problem is, the GOP base in the Commonwealth (increasingly an angry tea partyish contingent) really really really hates this guy with a mortal passion.
Lord you think the Chimes at Midnight hates Romney you should see what the local wingnut bloggers are saying about Maginn.
Apparently his wife (a political refugee from the PRC) is insufficiently anti-Darwin or some damn thing...And that is just for starters.
This is bad news for a state party with little ongoing ground game and is therefore dependent on fundraising TV commercials and a smooth outreach to independents.
And all this infighting just when the GOP has a good toehold in the State Legislature and a seat in the US Congress comes into play...tsk tsk.
Well I'm a democrat so I'm used to infighting...Always interesting to see it as a pure spectator.

BTW...

There is a poll out there that indicates Newt Gingrich has pulled even with Romney in New Hampshire!

If this truly is the case, I may need to rent out Harvard University Stadium for a prolonged fit of ugly guffaws.

Well I've said it before and I'll say it again, Mitt Romney can screw up a two car funeral and that goes for blowing a big built in lead up in New Hampshire.

Well, I say that, but the reality is that Newt Gingrich is the biggest serial corruptard to contest the GOP nomination since the Glory Days of James G. Blaine, I don't believe for a moment he can build any momentum off of this poll.
Honestly, Newt loves money and mistresses the way a hog loves slop.

Still it'll be plain fun to see if Mitt starts squirming, the primary is getting closer and closer and he tends to get flustered when the heat is on.

Y'know it costs a lot of

"billable hours" for a lawyer to come up with legal justification that allows gubernatorial aides to buy back their state issued hard drives.

And there is something so quintessentially "Brand Romney" about such a move, underhanded, heavy handed and smarmy all at the same time.
And not for nothing but didn't Romney spend four full years in office ranting and raving about the nefarious back room deals and secrecy on Beacon Hill??
I mean not a week went by when the Governor's Office didn't eructate some press release denouncing the "culture of corruption" in state government.
"Culture of Corruption" indeed.
Ghod if Mike Dukakis' posse pulled a stunt like this the Howie Carr's of this state would have themselves A Jubilee.
But Mitt? Butter wouldn't melt in his mealy mouth....

Confluence...

I read with no great surprise in today's Globe that before leaving the governorship, Team Romney deleted virtually their entire backlog of emails to the point of buying their state issued hard-drives with their personal cash.
Apparently, if the Globe can be believed, this is legal in the Commonwealth if not entirely ethical.
Now, I doubt any particularly actionable is on those emails, Romney's corruption is rooted in his opportunism and ambition, his greed has already netted him a fortune so mere financial advantage probably isn't in play here. No, the worst that might be on there is the revelation that Mitt's presidential dementia probably predated his election to the Governorship of Massachusetts.
That is speculation on my part, but I'll be I'm close to the mark.
No...my big point today is, that any state that would allow state employees to buy their computer hard-drives as part of a bid to keep private and secure messages that are part of the public records, is a state that ought to give second thoughts to legalizing casino gambling.
If we have these kinds of holes in our public ethics statutes, imagine the mishaugas that'll blow up once casino lobbyists camp out permanently on Beacon Hill.
Shit they are there already and ground hasn't even broken on any casinos yet.
I urge the Governor (admittedly hopelessly) to veto the gaming bill on his desk now for the Good of the Commonwealth.
He won't but I had to do that.
Which is why I am fine with any effort to get casino gambling as a ballot question next year, this might be our last best hope to lobby Beacon Hill "en masse".

We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg here folks, think about it.

Job Creation...

From Citizen Romney we are gonna hear a lot of this in the coming months.
So it is important to set the record straight.
In that Mitt Romney never created a single job by risking any of his own money.
If he did create any jobs (and his record begins and ends with the 2002 Winter Olympics which is a very unique case indeed)  it was only by the grace of the full faith and credit of Other People's Money.
Mostly he is know for loaning money to other rich white men, I'm sure he knows how to buy low, sell high and charge an arm and a leg for interest, but job creation he knows about as much as Humble Elias.
Which is why Romney's job creation program is pretty much nothing but what he knows, I.E. low taxes, lotsa loopholes and a better opportunities for financials to run amok unmolested by the public interest.
I mean, if a job is created for someone somewhere it's almost by accident.
Beyond this, the Romney record on job creation is limited to cash tips to the Dominoes Pizza Delivery Guy in Belmont Ma.

Crawling on his knees back to "The Vital Center"...

Former State Senator Scott Brown after two years of carrying water for Wall Street in a particulary obnoxious & servile way has abruptly endorsed Richard Cordray's nomination to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Clearly the Senator realizes that Citizen Warren's anti Wall Street cred has some resonance in the Commonwealth and is therefore tacking to Port as a consequence.
Typical Scott Brown in other words, No on Monday Means Yes on Friday Assuming the Usual Fatcats Get Their Cut.
He has made his money, now he needs to secure his political prospects.
The above endorsement BTW doesn't make a damn bit of difference, the GOP auto-pilot filibuster is still rock solid even with Brown's defection.
Think of this a good measure of how quickly Citizen Warren has influenced the emerging debate in next year's senatorial election.

America's Sophomore

Newt Gingrich, is creeping up and up in the current GOP polls.

I can see why, Newt is a career pseudo intellectual and the DC punditariat love a pseudo intellectual in politics especially if he is a conservative and brags about all the books he has read.
Meanwhile I have to wonder if all this political instability is about creating a viable alternative to Mitt Romney, then does it make sense to drop one candidate with a crude thing for mistresses (Herman Cain) for another candidate(Newt Gingrich) who simply marries his mistresses and then dismisses them in fiercely ugly divorces?
Dunno if that is good bargain with the GOP "values base" over the long term. On the other hand sexual hypocrisy is pretty much a plank in the Republican Platform these days...As long as you can bang the pots long and loud for old fashioned puritanism all sorts of personal debauchery will be resolutely overlooked.
How else to explain the political career of Newt Gingrich the very embodiment of the "Say One Thing and Do Another" conservative ethic?

Mitt Romney Makes It Personal...

Candidate Romney, caving in to pressure to be just as wingnut crazy as everyone else in the GOP presidential sweeps, has now proposed privatizing the Department of Veteran's Affairs.
Let me put it simply, Over My Cold Dead Body Willard!
My old man, he is ninety years old, and at the Crossing of the Rhine in 1945 he sacrificed everything short of his life for this Republic
Elias Nugator Sr. is ninety, riddled with Alzheimer's Disease, punished with war wounds,wheelchair bound and vexed by a list of health problems that would turn your hair gray.
By Act of Congress, the Department of Veteran's Affairs has to see to his care given the extent of his war related injuries.
Thank Ghod for the VA, they are taking exemplary care of him at a time in his life when he has a lot of medical needs.
Can't imagine the sort of raw deal he'd get if the care system was privatized, certainly the ratio of caregiver to veteran would go down...and if you don't like the paperwork from the VA, wait til your local HMO gets it's snout in the trough!
I know a lot of contemporary Vets are having big problems with the VA, Humble Elias sympathizes, the department is in sore need of sensible reform.
Mitt Romney though, he wants to throw everything on the tender mercies of A.I.G.
Just once, can't an institution that serves the common man or in this case the common soldier get the coveted designation "To Big To Fail".
I mean a well run efficient service oriented Department of Veteran's Affairs has to be at least as important as bailing out General Motors or Bank of America.
Privatization benefits the Mitt Romney's of the world, period end of story.
If I didn't like the man before, I plainly despise him now.

Sooo Karl Rove is backing Scott Brown to the hilt eh?

Even has a campaign video attacking Citizen Warren for being a comsymp or some damn thing.
Seems like Karl's mojo has run stale, but ya never know, the depths of his hatred for liberals and democracy itself are still pretty vital.
Of course, Scott Brown is the usual sort of evasive opportunistic "Edward M. Jason" character that La Famiglia Arbusto would normally casually betray and or primary out of existence if possible.
However, Mitch McConnell wants to be Senate Majority so he can outlaw the last one hundred years entirely, so he need's Scott Brown's vote in caucus...Hence the intervention from Karl Rove.
Of course the utility of deploying Rove in a state where he polls below Lavrenty Beria in public admiration is in and of itself, questionable.

So Citizen Rick Perry could not recall

just which Federal Departments he wanted to abolish during last night's debate?

That is pretty pathetic if you asked me. A demagogue who cannot recall his own bluster in sequence is almost never destined for The Purple. Recall please Senator Joseph McCarthy who could never get straight just how many communists were supposedly infesting the US State Department, fifty, seventy five, two hundred, it varied. Of course, McCarthy got dropped to the canvas by the first brahmin who could line up on his chin...Perry had better take some time to memorize his own bullshit thass all I can say.
Well, whatever, we all know he will do no such this, the man is just plain dumber than a bag of hammers, and like they say "You Can't Fix Stupid".
What I wanna know is just who convinced Perry to parachute into this race to begin with? I mean as dumb as the Texas Governor is, the sheer credulity of his backers must be an awe inspiring thig.

Congrats to Ayanna Pressley

once rumored to be "on her way out" of the Boston City Council she topped the ticket in last night's municipal elections and neatly refurbished her status as a "Woman of Destiny".
Just don't inhale kiddo, that is Humble Elias' advice.
As usual, the Globe etc will make much wampum about her Mayoral Prospects (whoever "tops the ticket" is instantly granted "Future Mayor" status among the local punditariat), however lets be real and note that Mayor Menino is likely to remain the dominant playa in City Politics for some time to come. I'd give him odds that barring some controversy or a health issue Menino will run for re-election next time around.
It seems crazy, Menino ran out of ideas a full decade ago and his looking awfully long in the tooth but his patented classic early 20th century brand of politics has kept him safely in office for twenty years, why stop there?
That is the context that really greets Ms. Pressley...Until Tom Menino steps aside she has risen just as far as she can go, unless she gets a yen to see the sights along the Potomac or something.
Still and all that, she gave that glass ceiling a good shaking didn't she?

This is a long comprehensive take down of Mitt Romney

from a fairly prominent conservative blogger/DC pundit. It is significant to Humble Elias simply because much of the arguments could have been cribbed from the Chimes at Midnight itself.
It is, nonetheless, food for thought.
Meanwhile this mook is living large on his Anti Mitt bona fides while I clip "Building 19" coupons...Clearly I'm working da wrong side of da street.

A moment of silence please

Smokin' Joe Frazier, the man who laid Muhammad Ali out on the canvas, has up and died.

And if there is a life after this one, you just know Joe is livid that he did not outlive Muhammad Ali and thus must wait for his rematch.

How long before Senator

Kay Bailey Hutchison walks back her ringing defense of Herman Cain yesterday, given the graphic descriptions of the alleged act by one of his accusers live on TV?
It is important to remember that Citizen Hutchison voted to remove Bill Clinton from office over Monica Lewinsky et al, Herman Cain though, is held to no such exacting standard by the Senator from Texas...at least for now.

It does not surprise me one whit

that Herman Cain came up in the polls after he was accused of sexual harassment by no less than three former employees (and counting).
The GOP is famously deaf to the pleas of women for workplace equality and lets face it, the decline of movement conservatism can be easily measured by their sheer imperviousness to irony.
Sexual harassment as such is an accusation one flings joyously at democrats and liberals, not something one applies with equal ferocity at one's co-ideologues.
This is why Ann Coulter can rise so vehemently and seemingly guilelessly to Cain's defense having cut her teeth back in the late 1990's on Bill Maher's old show calling Bill Clinton everything short of a rapist.
Again, the absence of any irony here is a strong indicator that conservatism is still mired in it's post Bush ideological sink hole.
So for the moment, Herman gets a pass, unless those embers start to blaze up and then if the polling can be believed a good chunk of Cain's base will desert to Newt Gingrich and his all ex-wife orchestra.

Yesterday,

Peter Canellos, who is normally the executive editor of the Boston Globe's editorial devoted a considerable amount of time and effort to an argument in favor of retaining Scott Brown in the US Senate on the grounds that he is "a moderate".
I would link to the specific op-ed, but Morrissey Boulevard is playin' for keepsies these days.
So this guy is the source of the Globe's strange mission to bang the pots for the cold grey corpse of moderate republicanism.
Of course, the problem with this thesis is simple, Scott is not a moderate republican, he in reality a sort of fireman, that is he publicly pours cold water on the embers of any good idea in Washington DC when he isn't strenuously diluting the potent brew of justice.
And for this "ganymede act" Senator Brown collects boffo bucks from Wall Street, assuming he can avoid eating babies or coming out for free hookers this is enough to pass as a "moderate" in the eyes of the Boston Globe.
As I've said before, the whole moderate republican thing is pretty much a fundraising flag of convenience and a pose by which to stultify the senses of the susceptible members of the punditariat, nothing more.
Scott Brown figured that out long ago, he does not need to give up much to receive such plaudits, you'd think the Globe would catch on, but no...this is the just about the ten thousandth Sunday in a row where some Globe columnist has gone sighing helplessly after the still silent spirit of Wendell Willkie.

So anyway...

Citizen Elizabeth Warren went down to Brockton to speak in front of a VFW-ful of volunteers only to be called a "socialist whore" by a tea partei heckler.
Well so much for Joanie Vennochi's notion that The Candidate is somehow being kept sequestered in a "bubble" eh?
And not for nothing, but I ranged up and down the Boston Globe this morning not word one about this disgraceful encounter.  I guess all the pundits need time to figure out how to spin this as a victory for republican moderation or as yet another misfire from John Kerry, blah blah blah.
Meanwhile let the record show, I've been to my share of GOP events, even ones where questions were taken from the aud, never once did I stand up and call Mitt Romney a "fascist pig".
Maybe I should have, I mean lord knows my mother would never have read about it in the Boston Globe.
I mean talk about keeping the news sequestered in a bubble....

If I had to guess...

then I think it possible that the Romney campaign leaked that damaging sexual harassment info on Herman Cain to Rick Perry's outfit.
Seems like the sort of sneaky ass stuff the former Viceroy's minions would pull...and besides from the looks of Rick Perry's campaign staff they are to a man dumber than a bag of hammers and likely incapable to dredging up damaging personal info about a rival.

What Massachusetts needs is a"Yul Brynner Law"...

Remember that line he had in "The King and I"?
"No head can be higher than MINE!"
Over in Chelsea, the Housing Authority Chief was until today, collecting a yearly salary of over three hundred thousand dollars!
And all over the Commonwealth the story is much the same, we have dozens of obscure boards, commissions, directorships and other public sinecures that have HUGE salary compensation built into them.
My solution is simple, no public salary in the Commonwealth may exceed that of the Governor's, as a matter of fact all other salaries are hereby capped at ten thousand dollars less than the Governor's gross yearly paycheck which is currently $140,535. That means the top salary category outside the corner office would be $130,535.00.
Mind you this only applies to boards commissions, local officers  and the Commonwealth Executive Department etc, because lord knows the State Legislature will work 37.5 hours straight to exempt themselves from any such restriction.
But we have to start somewhere I guess...

"Governor Huntsman...

Your footnote is calling..."

There is nothing more hilarious to me than a bunch of has been political operatives ginnin' up some deadbeat "nonpartisan" third party option all in an effort to get back in the headlines and maybe just maybe get the phone ringing again.
Why, they've even raised twenty two million dollars to fund their effort, sheee-it, I'm not even sure 22 large gets you from the Iowa Caucuses thru the New Hampshire Primary these days.
I'm sure all the David Broders and Scot Lehighs out there are just awestruck with the potential of this all new and improved Third Partei.
Otherwise this is happening right on schedule, the New Hampshire Primary date is now set, the GOP-Democratic actors are prettuy much set in stone, the punditariat has heard everyone's stump speech ten times over and is now off in search of some deep dark Third Partei Kicks.
They are even spinning this as a big threat to Barack Obama, never saw that one a-coming believe me.
Meanwhile, these meatheads are probably gonna try and get John Huntsman to switch up, they need  a marquee name and he is likely their best bet at the moment, which speaks volumes about their "nonpartisan" electoral prospects.

Scot Lehigh has it wrong...

its not that the mysterious intangible "republican right" is enforcing a rigid orthodoxy on the current GOP presidential aspirants, it is that most if not all the GOP presidential aspirants have themselves long records of enforcing a rigid conservative policy on the rest of us.
And if they deviate, (which is the point of his article) well...what can I say, crazy people & opportunists are never consistent.
Meanwhile I've come to the conclusion that Scot Lehigh might actually be a reasonable writer someday, if only he could get over his compulsive attempts to recast Mitt Romney as nice friendly GOP moderate a'la Thomas Dewey.
Moderation is dead in the republican party, it isn't coming back in our lifetimes, Scot seriously needs to confront that diresome fact. Wishing and hoping that the famously selfish and self interested Mitt Romney will emerge from the cocoon as Wendell Willkie V2.0 ain't gonna cut it.

I guess this means

that Herman Cain really was just another flavor of the week in the GOP Presidential Stakes.
Advantage...Romney.
Oh and clearly Rick Perry has gone from A Future Dictator of the USA to the Andy Dick of the current republican presidential contenders. If he keeps this up, he'll be finishing behind "High Pitched Rick" Santorum and the write in vote for botulism in the New Hampshire Primary.
Again...advantage Romney.
But still I like to think that somehow someone will rise up to challenge the Viceroy, he is hardly gaffe-proof after all....hell the man can hardly improvise in front of a microphone at all.
Well, a lot depends on the date of the New Hampshire Primary, if it is a short date then it's hard to dislodge Romney from his front runner status, if its a longer date then there is still time for someone to catch fire (and I don't mean the way Rick Perry's prospects are burning either).
And after all this is Willard Mitt Romney, he could screw up a two car funeral.

This is pretty sick and sad...

a homeless themed office Halloween party at a top Foreclosure Firm.

Honestly, where are the pickets and protesters when you need em'??

Say what you like about the old Robber Barons, they at least had class and sense of decorum. Today's overclass are the worst bunch of overindulged vulgarians imaginable.

(Autumn Parable) A Governor of Texas rode to New Hampshire on a brand new

Harley Davidson motorcycle, wearing a black cowboy hat, well worn blue jeans, ivory handled six shooters strapped to his hips and a Winchester hunting rifle casually slung off the side of his "hog".
When he got to Antrim, he got off, shook the dust of the road from his gleaming cowboy boots and announced to a feckless and unimpressed crowd "Ah fixin' ta run fer President in these here parts! Better vote fer me..."
"What if'n we don't..." drawled a voice mockingly from the back.
"Waaal then I'll have ta persuade yew, Texas style", he smiled & stroked the butt of his revolver for emphasis.
Whereupon said firearm promptly discharged a round into the Governor's foot, who emitted a high pitched scream and started comically hopping up and down holding the injured foot in his hands.
While hopping around shrieking and cursing, his cuff got caught in the hammer of his other pistol which, did it's duty by firing another round into the remaining uninjured foot of the aforementioned Governor of Texas who promptly fell in such a way as to bring his motorcycle down on top of him breaking both legs with a sickening snap.
Enraged and humiliated and unburdened by common sense, the Governor of Texas attempted to "Shoot the motorcycle off him"with his rifle  but was thwarted at the last minute by his listeners who'd temporarily put aside their laughing jags to wrestle the Winchester away from him.
Thus the flinty natives of Antrim NH were treated to the heartening spectacle of a certain Governor of Texas pinned under a motorcycle with two neat bullet holes in his feet and alternately cursing liberals when he wasn't bawling for his mother in a sad desperate and cringeworthy way.
And as the EMTs were loading him into the ambulance the Governor of Texas was heard to wail "As soon as I scale back on my dee-bate commitments I'm gonna git the candy assed liberal community activists that snuck up and shot me in my feet!!"

Keep in mind,

Mitt Romney is not "indecisive" in the Shakespearean sense of the term. He is opportunistic, there is a difference. To the indecisive, the issues loom large, complicated and concrete, making up one's mind and sticking to it is difficult given the imagined consequences.  To an opportunist like Romney, the issues are rhetorical abstractions to be acquired, promoted and discarded based on a calculus of personal benefit. So Romney's made is always made up, until the very moment that the potential pay offs shift and then he in turn shifts with them.
Mitt's mind is always made up, he has always been rock solid on what is best for "Brand Romney".
If you asked him about abortion in the summer of 1994 he was mildly pro choice, if you asked again in the summer of 2007 he was pro-life.
 What changed,?
The governorship of Massachusetts was no longer in play and the Presidency was.
I promise you on both mutually exclusive premises, Romney was an earnest advocate, or as earnest as he can seem to be when out campaigning.
Just don't call him indecisive, an indecisive person paradoxically cares about the issues even if they lack the willingness to commit whole heartedly to a particular policy or action, of the enormity of the issues before us, Romney could not care less...not with his own ambitions on the line.

John Olver is retiring...

thus opening up his district to "Reconfiguring the communities of interest" (ergo dismemberment) and yet STILL the rumor is, that Lynch will have to run against Keating when all is said and done.
Only in Massachusetts mah frenz...
At the rate they are going, Menotomy will be handed back to the British Ministry of Colonies.

Rick Perry sez it was a "mistake"

to participate in all the GOP debates that he has doing since announcing for President.
A politician can no more decline debates in this country than a soldier can decline to go "over the top".
In other words, Rick Perry is publicly admitting he is too stupid to be President, or even defend his tattered and shopworn ideas in a highly restricted debate format that does not favor full and complete discussion on the mode of the British House of Commons.
Imagine if Rick Perry sat in Parliament, he'd be the first MP to be "laughed to death" by his colleagues.
Honestly this mook was Huey Long two months ago, he'll be lucky to finish out the year as Henry Wallace.

Colonel Khadafi is Dead...

Geez that Barack Obama guy really hates dictators doesn't he?

Otherwise this seems like an awfully good time to go on vacation, updates will be arbitrary and capricious until Halloween, how all seven of you will cope I cannot imagine.

Joanie Vennochi is at it again...

Took an out of context quote from Citizen Elizabeth Warren on the Left Ahead Podcast and made it seem like the candidate was dissing "hicks".
Oddly enough, this was the selfsame line taken by the state GOP when they listened in to the selfsame podcast.
Funny how that works.
Listen, Joanie likes to pass herself off as a cynical hardbitten member of the local punditariat but honest to ghod it is times like this that she comes off as the most credulous yokel on Ghod's Green Earth.
One blast fax from Eric Fehrnstrom's lackey's and she is off and running.
I mean not fer nothin' but didn't Citizen Warren grow up in Oklahoma before attending some shitkicker university in Texas?
As far as Humble Elias is concerned Warren IS a hick, a rube, a hayseed a shitkicker, but if she proposes new policies to the benefit of the common folk, well I for one will listen at the very least.
As for Joanie she'll sit in her cubicle stewing because the democrats aren't answering the GOP's phony-ass charges effectively enough.
There is nothin' like a senate race on the op ed pages of the Boston Globe...really.

Not only is Rick Perry too stupid to be President,

he is likely too stupid to beat Mitt Romney in a fair debate.
That is what they call scary-stupid.
Never get into a debate about decorum with Romney he is such an uptight Ward Cleaver prig he'll come off the better every time. Practically speaking it's the former viceroy's only reliable political trick. Don't interrupt him or rave like a bar-room loser at him, it never works.
Hard questions work, the internal contradictions of his proposals work, digging away at his 1% status and his Banker Bona Fides have promise...but waving a finger in Willard's face and calling him a liar?
Nada.
Perry is trying to make this a two man race, but his position has deteriorated almost on an hourly basis, his polls are putting him down closer to Santorum, Gingrich and the cheap acts at this point. Romney's best hope to win is for Rick to keep yelling. That'll keep Herman Cain from sneaking thru and assuming an early New Hampshire Primary Mitt will be claiming "early momentum" before New Year's.

John Fund

an arrogant rightical chic nitwit who writes for the Wall Street Journal, has got the biggest mouth (literally) in the punditariat.

I mean look at that pie hole, he could stuff four cue balls in there and smile sans demure.
I haven't seen a mouth that big since the Empire Days of William Jennings Bryan.

Y'Know...

New Hampshire, historically speaking has never really looked with kindness on purely religiously inspired conservative candidacies.
Voters up there can be viciously reactionary, but there is an odd unspoken secular streak in the state's political DNA.
This is why marquee religious conservatives like Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum or Pat Robertson "gat no heat" in the New Hampshire Primary.
On the other hand, xenophobes and tax cranks, can get a brass band welcome in the Granite State.
So it isn't like Herman Cain is a completely unlikely playa in the New Hampshire Primary...his two most salient characteristics, a reactionary tax plan and an old fashioned hatred of foreigners poll well in the whitest most tax obsessed state in the union.
We will know if any of this resonates with Mitt Romney if next week he starts banging the pots for a lowering taxes across the board to 00.1 % and mass deportations of Hunkies and Barleyjacks.

A frank appraisal

"Sarcastic rant driven chatter" aside, Humble Elias has been a interested observer in "Brand Romney" since his unsuccessful run for the US Senate in 1994. And I freely admit to using him harshly, but what can I say?
Only that I have Menckenish tendencies.
But it is starting to look like he might be the GOP nominee for President in 2012, although this is "Brand Romney" we are talking about, they are "One and Two" so far.
If he is nominated Romney is gonna run as "Reagan 2.0", a budget balancer, a private sector job creator with the usual conservative insurgent rhetorical rubbish. If he discusses social issues at all, it will be in sotto voce which is pretty much out of the Bush Family playbook.
Romney is a good debater, but not a great debater, he rarely does well against other republicans since he can't really take a hard right shot. More often than not, he gets wilded by the opposition and rarely keeps his composure. But in a general election, these are not gonna be a tactical factors in any notional debates between President Obama and the Former Viceroy.
Moreover he is a bit of an android, he makes Al Gore look like Robin Williams, scripted and overscripted is Romney at the core.
However, Romney makes smarm, phoniness and insincerity work for him. If the debate is somehow over who is a better nicer more upstanding person, no matter how patently unctuous and insincere the delivery, it is advantage Romney phoniness and all. That is more or less how he beat Shannon O'Brien, the whole thing came around to abortion and tattoos giving Mitt a chance to badly impersonate Ward Cleaver, which given the preference for the bromides he was espousing, gave Romney the election.
If you are looking for his weaknesses, other than his rhetorical shortcomings and his Bushian reliance on political thuggees, it lies in the fact that at the end of the day, Mitt Romney is a banker, and bankers are god damned unpopular right now.
Do you think he has ever given anyone who desperately needed it, credit?
Not hardly.
Do you suppose he was an easy touch for a cash strapped business that couldn't meet its debt obligations over the short term.
I doubt it.
Frankly I strongly doubt Mitt Romney has ever done anything for anyone who makes less that $500,000 a year.
So when he starts gassing on about job creation and smarming it up about his simple old fashioned social views, the response is threefold , Mitt is a BANKER BANKER BANKER!
If he talks about values, the response is, Mitt and his Banker Values right down to the foreclosure crisis the banks handed off to the Feds.
If he talks about jobs then the response is, the only jobs Mitt ever created were for other rich white men.
As for his simple old fashioned values, well, bankers love money, not people.
Simple...

Look like we are gonna get

casino grambling whether we like it or not.
All those legislators are supposedly concerned about "jobs".
Well, sure, their jobs, chiefly what phony baloney "gaming lobbyist" gig they can score after they are done drudging away in the state senate.
I think this bill will be a terrible thing for the state democratic party down the road, but then that is speculation right now, the lege has dreamy dreams of easy ass revenues and palmy consultancies...you can't beat that so it seems.
Just wanna thank everyone who was agin' it, left and right for speaking up, remember it is possible in a well constituted democracy to fail and still be right in the end.

Per Rasmussens polling

Texas Governor Rick Perry is currently running behind Newt Gingrich at nine percent.

Let me put this another way, Rick Perry can't even get past a guy who hasn't got the common sense ghod gave a Jersey Cow...A guy with three ex wives and counting. In short a freaky little mook.
I thought, Rick Perry was gonna be the next Shit Storm Out of Texas, Dumb, Mean and Loud.
Now look at him a scant month later, The GOP likes affirmitive action more than they like Rick Perry.
I blame nothing more than Perry's almighty stupidity for his current plunge, he came to power in a notorious one party state, rarely debated anyone in his re-election "fights" and had preciously few worthwhile thoughts in all that time in the Governor's Office. So by a process every bit as mean as natural selection, Perry finally rang up as being too stupid to be President of the United States... An office that has boasted of such feebs as Warren Harding among other teachables.
I give him til Christmas then he'll bail, I'm not even sure his endorsement will count for shit by then, he hasn't said a single sensible thing since he announced for the office.

New Hampshire is actually considering

moving it's date for the presidential primary back to December 6th, 2011?
All to ensure that the Granite State has the "first in the nation" primary.
Hum.
Dunno about that, seems like moving that damn thing out of a presidential election year has a diminishing rate of return...and it is just plain ridiculous as well.
And we all know Granite Staters, they hate to look ridiculous.
Practically speaking that puts the primary date within ninety days from now, serious advantage to Romney since historically a lot of "come from behind" candidacies up there don't coalesce til after the Iowa Caucuses.
I mean a decision like that more or less hands the state over to Mitt Romney without a vote ever being cast.
Just sayin' thass all.
Personally, I think the "first in the nation presidential primary" has become a rather corrupt cottage industry in New Hampshire for both parties equally. I will grant there is some advantage to having said primary in a small state with strong preference for retail politics, but there are smaller states out there, more diverse, with more competitive political parties, that are equally deserving.
Well what of it, no one wants to confront this issue,  I get that....but this is ridiculous period.

The Cain Mutiny...

Y'know Herman Cain could just possibly be in the paying position in the NH GOP Presidential Primary.
Or he could be the flavor of the week like Pawlenty, Chris Christie and The Knack.

Alot depends on whether or not Rick Perry tries to make it a two man sh*ttin' contest with Romney tonight at the Dartmouth Debate.
IF that happened, and IF Cain was smart, he could sneak thru the fray and look like an acceptable well spoken unthreatening (christian) alternative to the Perry-Romney mishaugas.
Much the way John Kerry started to look good when Rep Gephardt and  Governor Dean started mixing it up in Iowa.
Otherwise Herman Cain is a good fit with the New Hampshire GOP electorate, as much as they once punched Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan's ticket they also went bangin' the pots for Henry Cabot Lodge and Pat Buchanan.
So for Herman, there is hope.
Likely though, he'll flame out tonight and will be back rubbing elbows with the cheap acts tomorrow morning, the search for the Great Big Anti Romney will go on and on....

I for one don't have problem one with

the whole "Occupy Wall Street" mishaugas.
Wall Street as a corporate entity has gotten off with a pat on the ass in this the very recession caused by bankers. If Washington will not force Financial Elite to play by the rules then what choice does the American People have but to register their disapproval in a very tangible and public way?
So far as I can tell, these are peaceful if forceful demonstrations, so if the bankers and the stockbrokers and their ilk have to run a gauntlet to get to work so much the better. Wall Street has "nothing to declare but their bad intentions" to quote the late William S. Burroughs.
They have much to answer for.
As far as I am concerned these protesters have all the rights that an abortion clinic blockader can and should expect.
Jeff Jacoby claims they are "stifling innovation", not hardly, "Occupy Wall Street" is America's Neighborhood Crimewatch as far as Humble Elias is concerned.

Mitt Romney Conquers the Universe...

Which is what his defense proposals amounted to this weekend.

Apparently, mere global predominance isn't enough for the Former Viceroy, he thinks a'la Donald Rumsfeld that the USA should rule the universe like Ming the Merciless or something.
Anything less is craven appeasement of the dreaded Pee-Puls Ree-pub-lick of CHIIIIINAA!
Willard has a healthy respect for the PRC, him and the Bain Capital Group have been doing good business over there for years.
In fact you could say, that a good chunk of Romney's current quarter of a billion dollar fortune has been derived from all sorts of quiet deals with "Red China".
None of which prevents Willard from intimating that the USA is lagging behind his former business partners.
Well, what can I say? That is Willard in a nutshell, he thinks a very complicated strategic relationship with China can be resolved with another carrier battle group (raising our total to twelve, against the PRC's one carrier) and (ghod help us) missile defense.

"Do I contradict myself,?"

"Very well I do contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes!"

Thank ghod for Walt Whitman hacks like me would be run out of town without him.

Yesterday I took Scott Brown to taste for classlessly snarking on Citizen Elizabeth Warren's looks in a radio interview.
This was after I made the brutal (but true) remark that once Sarah Palin's looks faded her followers would trail off looking for some new messiah to venerate.

So let me make this clear, I approve of neither phenom, Scott Brown ought not to snark about anyone's looks, he ain't gonna stay pretty forever. And Sarah Palin's apologists ought to have the courage of their convictions and adhere to their candidate on the basis of her "ideas" (so to speak) and not her youthful face & figure...which has been a key selling point for Palin with Kampus Konservatives.
But I do prattle on like Jeff Jacoby...peace out y'all.

If watching a dues paying member of the local punditariat

fall to his knees in helpless adoration before a politician is yer thing, then by all means pick up today's Boston Globe and read Scot Lehigh's column.
Rest assured his career-long man crush on Mitt Romney continues unabated.
I don't quite understand why, but on Morrissey Blvd there is this compulsion to anoint someone anyone the Moderate Messiah and Savior of the GOP & the USA.
Never mind the fact that moderate republicanism is as dead as the Bull Moose Party. Ignore the sad truth that Ronald Reagan, the Bush Family, Newt Gingrich and the Tea Partei hunted the Kenneth Keatings of this republic to extinction.
Nope, as long as Scot Lehigh can get to laptop and snag some free wifi somewheres, the myth and legend will live on and on and on. And if no suitable candidate presents him or herself, Scot et al will simply fiercely pretend that cold cynical aloof supremely self interested Mitt Romney (a man with five different positions on abortion, three on stem cells, and a great lover of the Tea Partei when he isn't calling them white trash behind their backs) is some sort of a...moderate.
Why they do this I do not know, but like all print based journalists the Globe has a irrational fear of conservative backlash on the Silent Majority-George Wallace-Tea Partei model, so clearly they think that a moderate republican is some sort of a bulwark against being deported or sent to a labor camp in Arkansas.
Which leads Humble Elias to the hilarious notion that Scot Lehigh actually thinks that Mitt Romney is gonna save anyone from the gallows when the purge comes down, not with his own hide to look after he won't!
So the worst accusation I can throw at Scot today is that he is naive...he has as I've said many times before a believing mind.
And I guess, he thinks that when the time comes, Romney will not sell us all out on the cheap just so he can git ta be President. The record says differently of the Former Governor but Lehigh is clearly functioning beyond the veil of factuality.
For that fact, moderate republicanism didn't die out because the constituency vanished, I do believe there are moderate republicans out there, either not voting or making bad deals with unfaithful candidates. No, the candidates and incumbents were swept out of office and either replaced by democrats (exp. Silvio Conte) or "primaried" by the usual rightical chic suspects.
To say the least, the house punditariat at the Boston Globe have not concerned themselves much with reporting that process...they might at least wake up for a few minutes to write a decent obit for moderate republicanism, but don't hold yer breath on that on folks.

"You Stay Classy there

Scott Brown".

And...

Steve Jobs is dead.

I'll miss him, every computer I have ever owned has been an Apple.
 I stuck with the brand when everyone was telling me that PC's were about to take over the world without firing a shot.
Now look at em'.
I only wish that I had bought Apple stock back when all this "Bill Gates Uber Alles" palaver was going around.
I'll bet the stock market takes a hit today.
I"d say that Citizen Jobs is waa-ay up in the consumer revolution category alongside Henry Ford and the model T.
So yeah this is a loss....

Palin Bails...

amidst all the fond remembrance of the late Steve Jobs, Sarah Palin managed to squeak up to the effect that she was not running for President in 2012.
As usual she was a vulgar, self worshipping mealy mouth about it.
Which is pretty much what I thought was gonna happen, why would Sarah give up all that lovely conservative welfare that has come her way since election night 2008?
Unless something crazy happens, this is pretty much the last we will hear of Sarah Palin's presidential ambitions. To be brutal about it, by 2016 Palin's looks will have faded and her Tea Partei acolytes will have moved on to some other super heroine.
Yeah I know....that was a brutal appraisal from Humble Elias, deal with it, the woman was polling behind swine flu and Colonel Khadaffi for Ghod's Sake.

The democratic senatorial debate last night

pretty much shook out the way I thought it would, with Citizen Warren looking to make a good first impression and the rest of the aspirants stepping up their game looking for constituencies within the democratic party that'll boost em' onto the ballot.
No fireworks in other words, but then that was no one's intention.
Up until about a month ago, this race had it's abstract qualities and was notable chiefly for who was not running, one good thing about Citizen Warren's candidacy is that it has concentrated people's minds and given the process concrete consequences.
Well, what can Humble Elias say?
The primary is eleven months away, the state convention (on which all democratic candidates for the US Senate are now focussed) is nine months off. Plenty to time to gin up a good donnybrook.

Word on the street is,

Chris Christie isn't gonna run for President.

Color me shocked, it's a big year for impulsive & dubious candidacies on the far right.

Meanwhile, Romney (whose own candidacy seems a terrific and mysterious inspiration for serious wingnuts to run for President) keeps floating to the surface of the GOP grease trap.
And Perry? He is in a polling tie with Herman Cain.
So the search for a hero to save the GOP from...Mitt Romney, humiliation, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry or perhaps the GOP clearly continues.
The psychology of it all kind of interests me, yes you tend to mark out hard for heroes when you want to win big and you don't have anything sensible to say from a policy standpoint.
You also tend to go down the hero path when you are afraid of something, and feel the need for some charismatic figure to save you and yours.
So my question is, given that, what is the GOP afraid of?
***
In a practical sense, I suspect that John Kasich, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush and who knows Ted Nugent will all be taking phone calls from panic stricken GOP political bosses ere' the set of sun.

Christie for President?

Apparently the fat mook will decide for sure by Thursday.

Of course, he has some baggage to consider including a pronounced tendency to weasel out of car accidents by citing his status as a then US Attorney.

As Reginald Maudling teaches us "all political careers end in failure" to which Humble Elias can add "all political careers in New Jersey end in corruption charges and very often the crash of prison iron".
I mean really, I think that the one state north of the Mason Dixon line with a worse overall reputation than Massachusetts has to be New Jersey.
And yet, the GOP is locked in a psychotic hero seeking frenzy is apparently willing to hazard all on behalf of some tattered bloated savior from out the stench flats of Elizabeth New Jersey.
Just like last month when they were gonna hazard all on behalf of a dimwitted credulous homonid from the Texas wastes.
my guess is, that the current frenzy strongly favors Christie piling in, I also think that he'll be in the drydock with multiple holes below the water line by Thanksgiving, that seems to be the reliable GOP dynamic in the run up to 2012.

Citizen Elizabeth Warren is still

holding onto her numbers vis a vis Scott Brown per this Umass Lowell-Boston Herald poll.

This is pretty much a good initial impetus to her fundraising I think, it allows Warren to go out of state a-roaming for Big Ticket Liberal Money.
On the other hand it's just the short of early-good-news that coalesces around a candidate like Elizabeth Warren in a state like Massachusetts. It doesn't mean that the democratic senatorial primary field is gonna start folding their tents, unless money becomes a big problem and some of those candidates can go very very far on very little cashola.
Other that it doesn't mean much...right now.

Joanie Vennochi sez...

That Citizen Elizabeth Warren had but to announce for Senator, and the liberal bloggers "fawned over her".
Who?
Where?
Me?
I think there was a yearning for a stronger higher profile challenger for Scott Brown...exactly who that was gonna be seemed a secondary consideration. But that hardly translates into a rising cult of personality for Elizabeth Warren.
Shee-it, the much admired Blue Mass Group was desperate to tempt Deval Patrick into the senate race...
Me? Everyone knows I'm a retrograde mark for Joseph P. Kennedy II...and besides I'm the only one talking about a thick durable glass ceiling in state politics. One that might not be breached in 2012.
Who else is still blogging about state politics from a liberal stance out there?
Left in Lowell and Marry in Massachusetts and that is it. Granted them two seem pretty keen on Warren, but I'd hardly call the posts to date hagiography.
Frankly single ticket blogging like the Chimes at Midnight is in decline, anyone who hasn't monetized their blog and made their mark by now, isn't going anywhere in 2012.
The future belongs to "social media" and sites that provide interaction between content provider and audience.
So, the accusation of "fawning" is hyperbolic, as far as Humble Elias is concerned...I can only wish I had someone to fawn over in this race, but everyone I like is either dead or given up on the game.

It and it doesn't sound like the

"model airplane bomber" could have accomplished much with his plot.

He probably would have run afoul of devising a reliable homemade detonator for his scheme regardless of his degree in physics from Northeastern.
Still I'm glad the Federales take these things seriously and follow up, these days its the skinchy little Al Queda sympathizers in basements that you have to worry about.
 "The one offs" US Citzens that've been recruited *& radicalized...

Try as Humble Elias might...

he can't seem to catch up with Rick Santorum to hear the Former Pennsylvania Senator's presidential stump speech in New Hampshire.
And that is because...Santorum seems to be spending all his time in Iowa.

If you think about it, that makes a lot of sense from the Former Senator's perspective. If he is gonna catch fire anywhere, it has to be among the hard core rightical chic wowsership in Iowa, those folks vote and show up for stuff in fanatical droves.
The problem is, that is the exact same game plan that Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry all have.
Shee-it all three of them will insist in pious xian unison that moonlit stumpwater is sovereign against warts and that the Founding Fathers were the lost fourteenth Tribe of Israel...how can screechy old Rick Santorum complete with mookery like that??

As for the mook in Framingham with the plan

to blow up the Capitol and the Pentagon with model airplanes...My only question is, are these sunsabitches jet powered??

Otherwise if you cannot disrupt command and control by dropping an airliner on the Pentagon, as was the case on 9-11, what the hell is a model plane loaded with C4 gonna accomplish other than a lesser increment of mayhem assuming success?

I give the little jerk credit for an original 007 style scheme, but am skeptical it would prove effective against the captioned targets.

Nonetheless, kudos to the Federales, they seem to be a bit more on the ball these days.
And I'll add, in the face of the usual cries for profiling and fingerprinting and barbed wire for illegal immigrants, that the alleged perp was a US Citizen.

Setti Warren bails on the democratic senate race...

I'm not surprised to say the least, I'd always thought he got in to gin up his name recognition and put some new fundraising names in his rolodex.
Doesn't seem like he accomplished either goal so why stay in the race?
Humble Elias has long suspected that Mayor Warren had his eye on Barney Frank's congressional seat assuming Newton stays in his district. Otherwise given the remorseless logic of redistricting and "stability of cadres" that characterizeas our congressional delegation, there wasn't much Mayor Warren could do, other than say concentrate on Newton or run for the US Senate.
And that in part is why we have such an odd assortment (for the most part) running for the democratic nomination for the US Senate, none of these peeps can get their foot in the door either in congress or the state legislature.
So they migrate to the open statewide seat, be it the Lt Governorship (as was the case in 2006) or the US Senate, as it is today.
Well, I still maintain it's a loss to the race as a whole, at this point my main interest is in fostering as wide and comprehensive a debate as is possible within the strictures of a democratic primary. That means everyone running gets a fair chance to make their case, the election is 14 months away a full discussion won't kill us by any means.

The Clear Call of Booty

The State Senate, acting behind closed doors has seen fit to whittle down a proposed five year ban on ex-legistlators working in the notional gaming industry, to a one year ban on ex-legislators working for the gaming industry.
Well, if that isn't a pretty blatant declaration of intentions then I don't know what is. Clearly the casinos are going to become a source of easy-ass lobbyist gigs for the feckless Morlocks in the state legislature.
Nice enticement for retirement to say the least a powerful bulwark against the recession for a lawyer who is clipping coupons on the back benches of the lower house.
Well of course, this low chicanery induced a notable quote from GOP senator Robert Hedlund (who favored the five year ban) “I sat next to Wilkerson for a while. I sat next to Marzilli.’’

Bob, old pal,I dunno what was up with Dianne Wilkerson, but whatever else Jim Marzilli is guilty of, he never took a dime and he was always a stern opponent of casino gambling. Trust me, he'd a been for a seven year ban on ex-legislators working for the casinos.
No, what mostly Marzilli is guilty of is making the state senate feel foolish, instead of simply looking foolish and selfish with that vote yesterday.
So there is a difference in my mind, but Hedlund probably couldn't care less, like me he sees the downfall of the state democratic party in casino gambling, he is just marking time tim the moment to strike arrives.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie

looks and acts all the world like a man who just triumphed at a Coney Island Pie Eating Contest.

On the other hand, Rick Perry's "game face" suggests a baffled neanderthal who came to the debate venue in search of the secret of fire...And of didn't find it.

And both these mooks are ample proof that the GOP will sooner nominate Achille Starace for President than the likes of Mitt Romney