The Atlantic on Mitt Romney’s growing collection of endorsements from failed GOP presidential candidates:
It’s amusing that Mitt Romney’s campaign would tout a warning from Bob Dole that Newt Gingrich’s nomination would lead to “an Obama landslide,” because not only did Dole himself lose to a young incumbent Democratic president, but also because Romney looks a lot like the Dole of the 2012 Republican primary.
According to the piece, Romney’s campaign sent The National Review a statement from Dole regarding Gingrich:
I have not been critical of Newt Gingrich but it is now time to take a stand before it is too late. If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices…
In my run for the presidency in 1996 the Democrats greeted me with a number of negative TV ads and in every one of them Newt was in the ad. He was very unpopular and I am not only certain that this did not help me, but that it also cost House seats that year. Newt would show up at the campaign headquarters with an empty ice-bucket in his hand — that was a symbol of some sort for him — and I never did know what he was doing or why he was doing it.
Yes, Bob Dole does not like Newt Gingrich.
Dole gets around to endorsing Romney, sort of, toward the end of his statement, but his endorsement has far less enthusiasm and passion than his tirade against Gingrich.
The Democrats are spending millions of dollars running negative ads against Romney as they are hoping that Gingrich will be the nominee which could result in a landslide victory for Obama and a crushing defeat for Republicans from the courthouse to the White House. Democrats are not running ads against Gingrich which is further proof they want to derail Governor Romney.
In my opinion if we want to avoid a sweeping victory by Obama in November, Republicans should nominate Governor Romney as our standard bearer. He could win because he has the requisite experience in the public and private sectors. He would be a president in whom we could have confidence and he would make us proud.
Romney’s campaign and its supporters keep saying that the Obama campaign is attacking Romney because it doesn’t want to face him in the general election. I don’t think Romney himself is that formidable a foe. Obama is going after him because he’s the likely nominee, and this will be a tough race for him no matter who his opponent is. So he’s not wasting any time.
Dole’s endorsement might help further raise concerns among primary voters about Gingrich — although some of those voters might like the fact that Gingrich was so contentious toward Democrats, especially Clinton. However, it doesn’t alter Gingrich’s depiction of Romney as a “Massachusetts moderate.”
There’s also an alarming sense of panic in Dole’s statement: Nominating Gingrich would result in an “Obama landslide”? Many Democrats believe that’s the case (I disagree), but a Republican arguing that it’s even conceivable for Obama to defeat a Republican nominee so soundly is simply not good politics. Gingrich himself has said that Romney would lose to Obama — for the historical reasons with which I’m inclined to agree — but he tends to downplay the loss. It would be a squeaker, perhaps, like 2000 and 2004. But the rout that Dole describes does not fit the GOP narrative of Obama as a failed president.
It doesn’t help the image of Romney as politician who’ll say anything, either. Yesterday, he claimed he’d consider Gingrich for the VP slot — clearly, a lie given that his campaign sent this hit job from Dole. Its whole point is that Gingrich would be poison at the ballot — most likely regardless of where his name was.
This makes me think that there’s a true disconnect in Romney’s campaign regarding the current Republican party. He’s trotting out an assortment of establishment politicians with mixed conservative credentials: John McCain, Nikki Haley, and now Bob Dole. He can’t seem to make headway with the usual suspects at FOX News (Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee). Even sending Dole’s endorsement to The National Review is very 1990s.
It’s probably the best Romney can do because the Tea Party branch of the GOP doesn’t think much of him. A competent campaign — having learned anything from South Carolina — would be courting Tea Party caucus leader Michele Bachmann’s endorsement, as she dislikes Gingrich so much you’d think she was one of his ex-wives.
The Gingrich/Romney battle is compelling to watch not just because of the almost Reality TV level snarkiness, but because it shows a GOP in disarray. Backbiting statements against other Republicans would never have happened even 10 years ago. This is normally the disciplined party, in sharp contrast to the Democrats. It makes Obama vs. Clinton look like a screwball comedy with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne.
serhasacomplaint 
Sebelius vs. Science…
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled the Food and Drug Administration Wednesday and stopped plans for the Plan B morning after pill to be sold over the counter. It is still available without a prescription but only to women (and I suppose men) over 17 who show proof of age, which at 17 would mean sulleness and a propensity for texting. Explaining her decision, Sebelius says she was “worried about confusing 11 year olds.”
Forget the 11 year olds; I’m 37 and her actions confuse me.
“I don’t think 11-year-olds go into Rite Aid and buy anything,” much less a single pill that costs about $50, (said American Academy of Pediatrics) member Dr. Cora Breuner, a professor of pediatric and adolescent medicine at the University of Washington.
Plan B is emergency contraception but not an abortion pill; it won’t affect an existing pregnancy. The FDA believed no age limit was necessary, but is there an actual risk to minors who take the pill? Sebelius isn’t talking but Greg Pfundstein at the National Review explains his support for the decision.
The general outline of the controversy is familiar enough. Plan B and similar drugs are controversial because in addition to their contraceptive effects they are known to have abortifacient effects by preventing fertilized embryos from implanting in the uterine wall. Advocates for wider availability of the drug decry those who stand in the way of a simple means of decreasing the number of abortions and out-of-wedlock births, all for the sake of very early fetal life. Imagine the “scramble — often in late-night or weekend panics after having sex without protection.” Opponents of trivializing sex, on the other hand, think that we should be concerned about how we treat all, even inchoate, human life, and, moreover, wonder why on earth we would want to decrease the caution in that late-night scenario. Do we really want to make it easier to have irresponsible sex and then run along to the nearest 24-hour retailer to pop a pill?
The sentiment here would not confuse an 11 year old. This is the standard, generally offensive judgment of women who are sexually active. Plan B wouldn’t make it “easier to have irresponsible sex.” Irresponsible sex is already easy. It’s an absolute. You can’t improve its simplicity. However, birth control — even when responsibly used — does fail. When that occurs, it’s responsible to take action.
This decision forces a minor to go to her parents if she wants the pill, which removes the choice over its usage and potentially her own pregnancy from her. Forcing women over 17 — presumably even those twice that age — to show proof of age and purchase behind the counter also restricts their privacy and needlessly so without a compelling medical reason.
Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the head of the FDA, disagreed with Not-a-Doctor Pfundstein, saying in The New York Times that the “studies and experts all agreed that young women would benefit from having easy access to the pill and did not need the intervention of a health care provider.”
The agency’s scientists, she wrote, “determined that the product was safe and effective in adolescent females, that adolescent females understood the product was not for routine use, and that the product would not protect them against sexually transmitted disease.”
A mandate to purchase health insurance is a constitutional crisis, but the Obama Administration placing an age restriction on the purchase of a health-related item that’s proven safe is met with applause from the same people who thought the administration overreached with health care. You’d think they were the guy from “Memento.”
I suppose it’s important to ensure that women don’t have irresponsible sex but if they do, they become irresponsible mothers and eventually raise irresponsible kids who can walk into an Arizona gun show and buy semiautomatic pistols without a background check.
Arizona is the state where a punk with a gun almost assassinated a congresswoman. It’s also where you can carry a concealed weapon into a bar or a school. There have ben no recommendations for sensible changes to our gun laws since then. The Second Amendment is inviolable in this country, but a woman’s autonomy apparently is not.
Posted by Stephen Robinson on December 8, 2011 in Political Theatre, Social Commentary
Tags: Kathleen Sebelius, Margaret Hamburg, National Review, Obama, Plan B