Romney now says he supports payroll tax cut

[DMX7]

... was against it (like a month or so ago), now for it. Gotta love this guy.

http://news.yahoo.com/romney-says-supports-payroll-tax-cut-034047645.html

[Winehole23]

dude needs to make a stand on something. bribing me to care about him isn't the worst start I can think of...

[clambake]

where are all the crackers for cain?

paging yoni!

[SnakeBoy]

When was he against it? I'm not seeing anything in the article showing a flip flop.


Romney called the extensions "little Band-Aids" in October, but in a recent debate he said he wouldn't oppose the one-year provision.

"I don't want to raise taxes on people in the middle of a recession. Of course not," Romney said last month when asked in a debate in Rochester, Mich., whether he would support a payroll tax cut.

[LnGrrrR]

dude needs to make a stand on something. bribing me to care about him isn't the worst start I can think of...

If you are willing to vote for him, I'm sure he can find something he agrees with you on.

[Winehole23]

the earnest attempt to be all things to all people has neither a practical nor any theoretical end

[Winehole23]

i joke about voting for Romney, but I doubt I could really do it. If Newt appears to be in danger of winning, I might be tempted...otherwise, doubtless not...

[LnGrrrR]

the earnest attempt to be all things to all people has neither a practical nor any theoretical end

He's a post-modern politician for our times. As long as he keeps his doublespeak up to par, he's golden.

[Nbadan]

this is newt's to lose right now, and Newt never seems to disappoint at that...if that happens, the GOP will have to turn to Romney....however, I still think there are candidates who haven't declared.....

[Winehole23]

Like?

[SnakeBoy]

I'm hoping I'll be voting for Romney. He's the best of the bad choices available. Newt might force me to hope for Obama to win (I'll stay home). Bachman would make me vote for Obama. Santorum would make me campaign for Obama.

[Nbadan]

Santorum would make me campaign for Obama.

:lol

[Nbadan]

Like?

Not saying yet....

and I don't mean Trump who has hinted of joining the race....would have to be someone with deep pockets and deep connections though....

[Winehole23]

comparative and superlative degree, check

[Winehole23]

Not saying yet....

and I don't mean Trump who has hinted of joining the race....would have to be someone with deep pockets and deep connections though....Bloomberg?

[Winehole23]

Jeb Bush?

[Nbadan]

Bloomberg?

Tempting..not well enough connected though...

[Nbadan]

Jeb Bush?

2016...people aren't ready for another Bush just yet...but I wouldn't rule out VP...maybe that's what Romney went to ask Godfather Bush...buy his blessing..

[Nbadan]

They've really been grooming Petrus, and he's been a very loyal soldier to the MIC, but that maybe too soon to...maybe the NeoCons finally have enough of manipulating Obama, or better yet, vice versa...they would love to control Iran's oil...

[Wild Cobra]

This is fucked up. SS insurance rates should have never been decreased. Decrease income tax rates. maybe the 10% t0 8%, the 15% to 12%, and split the 25% to 18% and 24%.

[boutons_deux]

Here's Paul saying exactly what's wrong with Wilard and the rest of the Repug field

Send in the Clueless

There are two crucial things you need to understand about the current state of American politics. First, given the still dire economic situation, 2012 should be a year of Republican triumph. Second, the G.O.P. may nonetheless snatch defeat from the jaws of victory — because Herman Cain was not an accident.

Think about what it takes to be a viable Republican candidate today. You have to denounce Big Government and high taxes without alienating the older voters who were the key to G.O.P. victories last year — and who, even as they declare their hatred of government, will balk at any hint of cuts to Social Security and Medicare (death panels!).

And you also have to denounce President Obama, who enacted a Republican-designed health reform and killed Osama bin Laden, as a radical socialist who is undermining American security.

So what kind of politician can meet these basic G.O.P. requirements? There are only two ways to make the cut: to be totally cynical or totally clueless.

Mitt Romney embodies the first option. He’s not a stupid man; he knows perfectly well, to take a not incidental example, that the Obama health reform is identical in all important respects to the reform he himself introduced in Massachusetts — but that doesn’t stop him from denouncing the Obama plan as a vast government takeover that is nothing like what he did. He presumably knows how to read a budget, which means that he must know that defense spending has continued to rise under the current administration, but this doesn’t stop him from pledging to reverse Mr. Obama’s “massive defense cuts.”

Mr. Romney’s strategy, in short, is to pretend that he shares the ignorance and misconceptions of the Republican base. He isn’t a stupid man — but he seems to play one on TV.

Unfortunately from his point of view, however, his acting skills leave something to be desired, and his insincerity shines through. So the base still hungers for someone who really, truly believes what every candidate for the party’s nomination must pretend to believe. Yet as I said, the only way to actually believe the modern G.O.P. catechism is to be completely clueless.

And that’s why the Republican primary has taken the form it has, in which a candidate nobody likes and nobody trusts has faced a series of clueless challengers, each of whom has briefly soared before imploding under the pressure of his or her own cluelessness. Think in particular of Rick Perry, a conservative true believer who seemingly had everything it took to clinch the nomination — until he opened his mouth.

So will Newt Gingrich suffer the same fate? Not necessarily.

Many observers seem surprised that Mr. Gingrich’s, well, colorful personal history isn’t causing him more problems, but they shouldn’t be. If hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, conservatives often seem inclined to accept that tribute, voting for candidates who publicly espouse conservative moral principles whatever their personal behavior. Did I mention that David Vitter is still in the Senate?

And Mr. Gingrich has some advantages none of the previous challengers had. He is by no means the deep thinker he imagines himself to be, but he’s a glib speaker, even when he has no idea what he’s talking about. And my sense is that he’s also very good at doublethink — that even when he knows what he’s saying isn’t true, he manages to believe it while he’s saying it. :lol :lol :lol So he may not implode like his predecessors.

The larger point, however, is that whoever finally gets the Republican nomination will be a deeply flawed candidate. And these flaws won’t be an accident, the result of bad luck regarding who chose to make a run this time around; the fact that the party is committed to demonstrably false beliefs means that only fakers or the befuddled can get through the selection process.

Of course, given the terrible economic picture and the tendency of voters to blame whoever holds the White House for bad times, even a deeply flawed G.O.P. nominee might very well win the presidency. But then what?

The Washington Post quotes an unnamed Republican adviser who compared what happened to Mr. Cain, when he suddenly found himself leading in the polls, to the proverbial tale of the dog who had better not catch that car he’s chasing. “Something great and awful happened, the dog caught the car. And of course, dogs don’t know how to drive cars. So he had no idea what to do with it.”

The same metaphor, it seems to me, might apply to the G.O.P. pursuit of the White House next year. If the dog actually catches the car — the actual job of running the U.S. government — it will have no idea what to do, because the realities of government in the 21st century bear no resemblance to the mythology all ambitious Republican politicians must pretend to believe. And what will happen then?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/opinion/send-in-the-clueless.html?_r=1&ref=paulkrugman&pagewanted=print

[SnakeBoy]

Like?

Ad running in Iowa now...

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"But, a lot is going to happen in these next 14 months. Mark my word, it is going to be an unconventional type of election process," Fmr. Gov. Sarah Palin told FOX News' "Hannity."

[Winehole23]

not sure about the flute music, but that's pretty tight

[DMX7]

When was he against it? I'm not seeing anything in the article showing a flip flop.

That's his most current position. Who belittles something they're for?

[coyotes_geek]

"But, a lot is going to happen in these next 14 months. Mark my word, it is going to be an unconventional type of election process," Fmr. Gov. Sarah Palin told FOX News' "Hannity."

Translated: Please keep talking about me!

[Winehole23]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/ia/iowa_republican_presidential_primary-1588.html

[boutons_deux]

Willard giving Noot a huge boost, saying he will kill partially or completely Medicare:

Romney: Medicare May Not Be Guaranteed Every Year, If I’m President

One is Congressional action — deciding as Hoover, Heritage and Brooking said a few years ago, we just have a budget. And every year don’t call this an entitlement. Every year pass a budget for how much the total subsidy is going to be. And that would then set the limit of how much each person is going to receive. Obviously, I’ve mentioned that people of lower income would get a higher subsidy than people of higher income. [...]

KLEIN: So you are saying, just to clarify, you would leave it up to Congress to determine it each year or that’s one idea that –

ROMNEY: That’s one, that’s one principle. I think the key principle is this: It’s not going to grow at an open-ended rate driven only by medical inflation.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011/12/07/384243/romney-congress-should-vote-on-seniors-health-care-every-year/