Over the past two weeks, we surveyed 74 Beltway insiders—37 Democrats, 37 Republicans—on the election, the state of politics, and what comes next. We wanted honesty, so we offered to keep their answers anonymous (in some cases, they allowed us to quote them).
. . . Participants include: Jack Abramoff, Bob Bennett, Matt Bennett, James Carter IV, Reid Cherlin, Dan Conston, Jon Cowan, Tom Daschle, Fred Davis, Brad Dayspring, Tad Devine, Byron Dorgan, Derek Dorn, Eric Fehrnstrom, Adam Frankel, Tony Fratto, Juleanna Glover, Paul Goodwin, Trey Grayson, Anthony Green, Bruce Haynes, Jim Jordan, Ted Kaufman, Jim Kessler, Chris LaCivita, Rick Lazio, Chris Lehane, Stu Loeser, Matt Mackowiak, Fred Malek, Jim Margolis, Joe Miller, Julian Mulvey, Billy Piper, Ari Rabin-Havt, Scott W. Reed, Jon Reinish, Ed Rendell, Andrew Roth, Mark Salter, Bob Shrum, Erik Smith, Roger Stone, Scott Talbot, Neera Tanden, Joe Trippi, Doug Thornell, John Weaver, Brian Wolff.
Yeah, I bet, LOL. Lehrer was a slug compared to Martha Raddatz. And while your boy Ryan tried to talk as fast as the Music Man, Biden managed to get more words in than Obama.
Sarah Palin had to say something, of course, and it was actually a sort of compliment made in Palin's Alaskinesque - Northern Shaman way: Joe Biden is the mighty musk ox of the tundra:
"Really tough format, Sean, for someone like a Paul Ryan or anybody else up against Joe Biden, when the moderator allowed one candidate to absolutely run roughshod over the conversation, over the opponent," Palin told Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity on Thursday night. "That’s a tough format. It reminded me ... of watching a musk ox run across the tundra with somebody underfoot. And in this case, when it came to style, it was Paul Ryan underfoot because of the moderator allowing Biden to do the interrupting, to kind of take control of the conversation."
The RNC released an unintentionally funny video with ominous music playing as Joe Biden laughs his head off. I dare anyone to watch this without giggling or at least smiling. Great job, Brownie - I mean Reince Priebus!
Peggy Noonan, who took Republican candidate Mitt Romney to the woodshed multiple times just a few weeks ago, now has jumped back on the GOP loyalty train, and is spinning like there's no tomorrow. She won't say that Biden won, but she won't say that Ryan lost either:
Tea Partier Erick Erickson wrote on Red State that Joe Biden spent half an hour "Braying like a Biblical Donkey," whatever that means.
Erick also went on Soledad O'Brien's show slamming the moderator, Martha Raddatz.
And remember while reading the following transcript that Erickson works for CNN now, so he is one of the so-called "journalists" he implies are covering for Raddatz. Also he seems to be insulting Soledad, who is his colleague now - ugh. In his comments he echoes Karl Rove because he misses Jim Lehrer who "got out of the way" and let Romney run roughshod over Obama. Ha - not so fun when the shoe is on the other foot, as it was last night.
ERICKSON: . . . I did think it was interesting in how much Martha Raddatz pressured Paul Ryan on specific policies and specifics of his proposals, and she didn't do that so much with Joe Biden. It's striking that for all the lack of specifics she may be getting from the Romney campaign, you're not getting them any more from the Obama campaign for what they're going to do for the next four years.
O'BRIEN: You know, you tweeted that about Martha. You tweeted this. I'm sorry, but I think Martha did an atrocious job as a moderator, lost control of both sides repeatedly.
ERICKSON: I absolutely think she did.
O'BRIEN: I think you've lost your mind.
ERICKSON: I think you're a journalists and journalists are going to give her cover. I thought she was horrible.
O'BRIEN: I've never met her before today. She walked by. I said hi. In terms of information --
ERICKSON: Look, you've got to --
O'BRIEN: Let me just finish and I'll let you respond. Hang on a second.
ERICKSON: -- with Joe Biden and Paul Ryan.
O'BRIEN: Right. For me a moderator who let's them go at it each other a little bit so you can get the argument but then jumps in and moves it to the right direction that's very helpful as someone who was just watching. I got to watch it in the hall. Why do you disagree?
ERICKSON: Because I think she only interrupted to move the debate forward when Paul Ryan was speaking. She rarely did it with Joe Biden. She let Joe Biden do the interruption. Her wheel-house was foreign policy. Two-thirds of the debate was on foreign policy. And, you know, when you're debating foreign policy in a vice presidential debate, I guess that's all well and good but we have this unemployment number, jobs decline and I just think moderators shouldn't make the focus of the debate their wheel-house.
O'BRIEN: I'm going to disagree with you on that. I thought she did a terrific job, thought she was super strong. Did you think Jim Lehrer did a good job? We can disagree.
ERICKSON: At least -- I think with Jim Lehrer, at least he got out of the way and let them talk. I think when Joe Biden was so aggressive last night you need the moderator to intervene a little more. With Jim Lehrer, I thought he was asleep for most of the debate but wound up being substantive. I haven't been impressed with the moderators so far this year. But Candy Crowley will hit it out of the park, I guarantee.
Chuck Todd's Swing State Statistics for September 23, 2012
Wow, back during the spring primaries who would have thought that here in September, the day after the Fall Equinox, there would be such a mutiny within the Republican Party. Back then, we might have expected trouble from Santorum or Newt and their followers, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, or the fervid Ron Paulites. But none of that is the problem right now. Now the Republicans have turned on Mitt Romney - the "good" candidate, the easy candidate, the one everybody thought was a shoe-in - because he turned out to be the "Dud" Candidate.
After a rocky week that saw plenty of conservatives break away from Mitt Romney, New York Times columnist David Brooks summed up the state of affairs on Sunday.
Brooks was one of several panelists on NBC's "Meet The Press" roundtable, which dove into some data surrounding Romney's popularity.
"Look at his high unfavorable ratings," host David Gregory said. "At 50%. The highest of any candidate running in recent memory. This is an image problem that his philosophical statements in this speech in May to fundraisers only exacerbates."
Brooks did not mince words, calling Romney "the least popular candidate in history."
. . . The Romney campaign has to get turned around. This week I called it incompetent, but only because I was being polite. I really meant "rolling calamity."
A lot of people weighed in, in I suppose expected ways: "Glad you said this," "Mad you said this." But, some surprises. No one that I know of defended the campaign or argued "you're missing some of its quiet excellence." ...
. . . A campaign is a communal exercise. It isn't about individual entrepreneurs. It's people pitching in together, aiming their high talents at one single objective: victory.
Mitt Romney needs to get his head screwed on right in this area.
Ouch!
Meanwhile,
Meanwhile, Reince Priebus, the indomitable RNC chairman, is in a world of denial, vowing that Romney had a good week after all and is just bursting with all kinds of specific plans that he might tell us someday if the campaign goes on long enough. Something like that, LOL.
I think that we had a good week last week, I think in retrospect, in that we were able to frame up the debate last week in the sense of, what future do we want,” Priebus said this morning on “This Week.”
“I think we can look back at last week as a campaign in a couple months and say, this was the defining week in both campaigns,” Priebus said earlier, “where I think both campaigns are crystallizing around a central theme, which is going to be, what kind of future do we want for our kids and grandkids? What type of America do we want for this country?”
. . . he conceded that last week was not the “best” of the campaign for Romney.
“I think Governor Romney’s been pretty clear, it probably wasn’t the best-said moment in the campaign and probably not the best week in the campaign,” Priebus said.
I'll tell you about specifics. First of all, Mitt Romney talks about, all the time, about reducing the GDP spending from 25 cents on the dollar down to 20, reducing small business taxes from 35 to 25, reducing income taxes across the board by 20 percent.
I mean, for crying out loud, we’ve got Paul Ryan on the ticketAs far as specifics go, we're the only ones talking about how to save Medicare. The president's the one that raided Medicare by $700 billion.
I mean, we've got specifics coming out of our eyeballs.
I'm sorry, maybe its just me, but a man who looks so much like Peter Lorre shouldn't really draw attention to his eyeballs. It forced me to make this with Photobucket's edit tool (hint: Liquify) Heh . . .
When all you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.
When the only advice you get from your party is to "be aggressive" and "attack Obama" and you desperately want them all to like you and to never be criticized for being wimpy, that is what you will do. You will attack Obama in every situation, even if it makes no rational sense, and even if it threatens international peace.
Just a few days ago, Romney was getting loads of armchair advice from frustrated Republicans who are livid because he is crashing and burning in every national poll. But their efforts to light even more of a fire under Romney seems to have lit the fuse to the bomb that is Romney's Libya response. For instance:
He (Romney) should be very aggressive and he should be adamant in his attacks . . . he needs to be severely aggressive.
~ Sarah Palin on Fox, via Last Word
The Romney campaign's going to have to make some changes. They're going to have to go ideological! They cannot continue on this 'Obama Mr. Nice Guy' bit. They just can't do it. It isn't going to work.
. . . I'm not saying go out and say Obama's a bad guy. But he's got to be tied to this economy. His policies, his ideas, his ideology. Liberalism is still a dirty word in this country - use it! Rush Limbaugh on his radio show
Speak Up, Mitt!
. . . It’s not enough to float like a butterfly. You have to sting like a bee. No sting, no victory.
~ William Kristol on the Weekly Standard
I keep going back to the millions and millions of dollars paid to these political consultants.
Election after election, we hire people who have lost previous campaigns; who've run campaigns that have failed; who have message campaigns where the message fell flat, and they keep getting re-hired. I don't understand that. I don't know why those are the people you hire.
. . . you're in this, you have one shot, man. This is going to be the first line of your obituary: you won or you lost. It's all on the line for the country, and it's all on the line for you.
~ Conservative Laura Ingraham on her radio show 9-10-12
Ouch - no candidate wants to see the word "obituary" especially when he is sinking in the polls. That's scary talk.
And finally, this from Jennifer Rubin who wrote a scathing analysis of Romney's 9/11 speech on the same day that the campaign decided to push back on Libya. Rubin told them to "seize the moment" and not put things through the "mushy" "Boston Blender," which is a pointed slap at Romney's closest surrogates from his Massachusetts days, the guys Romney trusts to write his policies and speeches:
On Romney's 9/11 Speech to the National Guard Association
This was a wasted opportunity when he could have shown some mettle. His foreign policy message, not unlike his domestic policy message, is getting put through the Boston blender, it seems, coming out mush. That would be mush with no flavor.
. . . Now is not the time for sweet vignettes; it’s time for him to seize the moment. That requires Romney to sharpen and beef up his message.
~ Jennifer Rubin on Washington Post
"Beef it up" guys, or your foreign policy is "mush." I wonder what Jennifer Rubin will write about today, if she still has a job?
All this free advice is looking strategically WRONG on so many levels now, going against the best interest of the candidate and the party. But perhaps they did all the voters a huge favor by throwing the spotlight on Romney's foreign policy incompetance.
On Tuesday night, the Cairo Embassy issued a statement trying to cool things down surrounding a volatile situation involving an anti-Islamic film made by an Israeli, which said:
"The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others."
That's a rather standard representation of the U.S. position on freedom of religion, right? But because it wasn't anti-Islam in a Moslem country, the stupids came out of the woodwork to condemn it.
Apparently President Obama can’t see Egypt and Libya from his house. On the anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks ever perpetrated on America, our embassy in Cairo and our consulate in Benghazi were attacked by violent Islamic mobs. In Cairo, they scaled the walls of our embassy, destroyed our flag, and replaced it with a black Islamic banner. In Benghazi, the armed gunmen set fire to our consulate and killed an American staff member. The Islamic radicals claim that these attacks are in protest to some film criticizing Islam. In response to this, the U.S. embassy in Cairo issued a statement that was so outrageous many of us thought it must be a satire. The embassy actually apologized to the violent mob attacking us, and it even went so far as to chastise those who use free speech to “hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.” (Funny, the current administration has no problem hurting the “religious feelings” of Catholics.)
But where is the president’s statement about this? These countries represent his much touted “Arab Spring.” How’s that Arab Spring working out for us now? Have we received an apology yet from our “friends” in the Muslim Brotherhood for the assault on our embassy?
It’s about time our president stood up for America and condemned these Islamic extremists. I realize there must be a lot on his mind these days – what with our economy’s abysmal jobless numbers and Moody’s new warning about yet another downgrade to our nation’s credit rating due to the current administration’s failure to come up with a credible deficit reduction plan. And, of course, he has a busy schedule – with all those rounds of golf, softball interviews with the “Pimp with the Limp,” and fundraising dinners with his corporate cronies. But our nation’s security should be of utmost importance to our Commander-in-chief. America can’t afford any more “leading from behind” in such a dangerous world. We already know that President Obama likes to “speak softly” to our enemies. If he doesn’t have a “big stick” to carry, maybe it’s time for him to grow one.
- Sarah Palin
Clearly, Priebus, the guy who compared women to caterpillars, and Ms. Palin Malaprop are two of the stupidest people EVER to reach a level of eminence in our society.
So why does the Romney Camp follow their lead? I guess we have to assume they are just a confederacy of dunces as well. Because look at Romney's statement from Tuesday night, which echoes Palin and Priebus: via Washington Post
I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.
I also believe the administration was wrong to stand by a statement sympathizing with those who had breached our embassy in Egypt, instead of condemning their actions. It’s never too early for the United States government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values.
The White House distanced itself last night from the statement, saying it wasn’t cleared by Washington. That reflects the mixed signals they’re sending to the world.
The attacks in Libya and Egypt underscore that the world remains a dangerous place and that American leadership is still sorely needed. In the face of this violence, American cannot shrink from the responsibility to lead. American leadership is necessary to ensure that events in the region don’t spin out of control. We cannot hesitate to use our influence in the region to support those who share our values and our interests.
Today Republicans want answers about who is running the show:
Who told Mr. Romney to issue a political broadside against the commander-in-chief the day after a U.S. ambassador was murdered?
~ Joe Scarborough of MSNBC
O'Donnell points to Richard Williamson, Romney foreign policy adviser, quoted in The Daily Beast:
When asked if the Romney campaign did the right thing by releasing a statement slamming Barack Obama for a failure of leadership in the wake of a series of brutal attacks on foreign embassies in Libya and Egypt, Richard Williamson paused for several seconds before saying just three words: “It was accurate.” . . . Pressed further if it was right to issue a political statement before the dust had cleared and the death toll was known, a statement that condemned President Obama but didn’t mourn those lost, Williamson said simply, “Sure.”
“Ty Cobb was the greatest hitter of all time and he batted about .355. And he is still the greatest hitter,” Williamson explained later in the interview. “There isn’t something in my 63 years I couldn’t have done better except con my wife into marrying me.”
O'Donnell calls that "The craziest thing I've ever read from a campaign spokesman . . . it is absolutely nutty." And rightly so. Foreign politics, especially in the Middle East, is not a game, so spare us the lame sports analogies. However, with advice like that, it's easy to see why Romney went to Britain and insulted their Olympic Games.
O'Donnell goes on to presume that Williamson would be fired post haste, but I'm not so sure. Look at Eric Fehrnstrom, hapless "etch-a-sketch" guy who is still running Romney into the ground months later. For a man who "likes to fire people," Mitt is almost too loyal to his inner circle of clownish advisers.
That is also the opinion of Washington correspondent Sam Stein of The Huffington Post who said on the show:
"No, I think he'll stay on the payroll, unfortunately. Unfortunately, it's a bad analogy.
There's an issue here which is Mitt Romney could have conceivably waited twelve hours, woken up, seen the news, and said, 'Listen, we all mourn the loss of life here, but it's time to really look at President Obama's strategy, vis-a-vis the Arab Spring.' And that would have sparked a conversation that may have been more damaging to President Obama than what's transpired currently.
The problem I think Mitt Romney has is that there's about three different factions within the Republican Party with respect to foreign policy. There's the people who are unapologetically pro-international engagement, the Neocons who think you can use military might to shape the world in your image. There are people who want to do it more subtlely, they're more realistic. And then there are the people, the Rand Paul types who want to disengage from the international community. So whenever Mitt Romney wants to put out a statement on Libya, he has to contend with three separate factions within his own party about what that statement is. And I think they look at that and say 'It is a lot easier for us to just go after President Obama on character grounds, accuse him of sympathizing with the protestors,' than it is to craft something that might be a little bit confusing to members of their own party.
And that's where he gets in trouble. . . .
. . . What you had this morning was Mitt Romney's advisers literally tearing down a campaign rally to set up a more somber setting so that he could deliver this statement in a sort of drabby dark Jacksonville office. Whereas Obama, all he does is step out into the Rose Garden and by sheer fact that he's President, he looked Presidential. And you know sometimes we look too much at the optics and the setting, and I think in this case the optics and the settings are a huge part of the story.
. . . There was supposed to be a partisan detente yesterday for 9/11. They knew about the embassy being breached. They planned their statement and they actually lifted the embargo to get ahead of the news cycle. They were very much aware of what they were doing. The statement was signed off by Romney himself according to the New York Times report tonight. They knew what was happening and if it were a gaffe they would have backtracked today. Instead they went back and they said 'No, we stand by that statement in condemning what the Cairo Embassy put out.' So no, this planned from the beginning and they totally miscalculated what would happen once they decided to say that Obama was sympathizing with the protestors.
I watched as many of the speeches as I could stomach from the Republican National Convention and to me there were several problems. The worst was Mitt Romney's unhappy expression the whole night. He stumbled onto the stage after being introduced by his wife, and he looked like a sad clown that has been sprayed with seltzer water too many times. He was NOT having a good time!
There was no cohesion between speeches. Mrs. Romney gave a rather shrill and squeaky speech about how much she loved Mitt and how much he loves everyone - love, love, love. Then Chris Christie from new New Jersey gave a more rabble-rousing speech about how love was just okay, but respect was so much better! Then he forced everyone to get to their feet and clap for him, and since most of the evening had been so boring, people complied. It just seems strange that the two speeches that were meant to introduce Mitt Romney to the country instead cancelled each other out and left people scratching their heads. I found them equally repulsive.
The camera panned onto Condileeza Rice a few times and she seemed to be crying, but I don't think it was for happiness. Her Party is going down the crapper.
John Boehner gave a really stupid speech about drunks in a bar, which suited his big red nose. I'm not sure how all the bar jokes went over with the Evangelical dry-county teetotal Tea Partiers from the heartland. Doh! Maybe he should have thought of that in between cocktails.
And then there were the really nasty hate-filled speeches ~ Reince Priebus and Janine Turner from Northern Exposure, especially. Ugh. Next time, just wear your sheets and hoods, folks. I found them both creepy to the max. This is totally Godwin, but either one could have started clicking their boots and shrieking "Sieg Heil!" and it would have seemed perfectly in keeping with their tone.
Rick Santorum's speech was another embarrassing homage to his grandfather's "big meaty hands" - people on twitter were counting and said he mentioned hands 24 times, and even said "hand America jobs," which sounds faintly obscene. I honestly don't know what he is thinking anymore, but then I never did.
The strangest thing of all was that each speaker from Nikki Haley to Chris Christie talked about their immigrant ancestors and family success stories. But wait . . . this is the party which wants to cut out all immigration, build a wall, put barbed wire on it, shoot people at the border, and force Grandma to deport herself. WTF? Why would any of them glowingly gush about their own successful families who came here with nothing and captured the American Dream if all they want to do is deny that dream to everyone else in the world? I'm stumped on that one. I think every time they said "my great-grandfather immigrated here" the audience squirmed, both in the hall and at home.
Just a few hours earlier they had given ugly Jan Brewer of Arizona, the queen of anti-immigration and Hispanic/Latino hate, a thunderous ovation just for announcing that Arizona was nominating Mitt. Total mixed message.
Finally, the piece de resistance was an incident that happened off-camera, but happened to a camera woman for CNN. You can't make this stuff up. I wonder what will happen tonight?
GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American CNN camera woman + saying "This is how we feed animals." @takeactionnews#TAN
— David Shuster (@DavidShuster) August 29, 2012
The CNN official declined to confirm specific details of the incident to TPM but generally confirmed an account posted on Twitter by former MSNBC and Current anchor David Shuster: “GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American CNN camera woman + saying ‘This is how we feed animals.’”
It is not clear whether the alleged culprit was a delegate or attending the convention in some other capacity.
In a written statement, CNN addressed the matter but divulged few details: “CNN can confirm there was an incident directed at an employee inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum earlier this afternoon. CNN worked with convention officials to address this matter and will have no further comment.”
The RNC referred POLITICO to GOP Convention spokesperson Kyle Downey for comment. . . . UPDATE: GOP convention spokesman Kyle Downey tells POLITICO, "Two attendees tonight exhibited deplorable behavior. Their conduct was inexcusable and unacceptable. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated."
Absolute Epic Takedown of pathetic Reince Priebus by Chris Matthews this morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe. Of course, Mika and Joe were stunned and flabbergasted that anyone dare question the RNC or their minions, and Tom Brokaw came up with a lame false equivalency ~ "Both sides do it" he vowed like an old man yelling at the sky. but Chris got the last laugh as the Morning Joe audience applauded all his best lines! Keep going with this, Chris!!!
Just a taste of what it was like - more quotes further down the page:
"That cheap shot about 'I don't have a problem with my birth certificate' was
awful. It is an embarrassment to your party to play that card. This stuff
about getting rid of the work requirement for welfare is dishonest.... and you
are playing that little ethnic card there. You can play your games and giggle
about it, but the fact is your side is playing that card." . . . It's
funny that the first joke he (Romney) ever told a joke in his life was about
Obama's Birth Certificate. ~ MSNBC host Chris Matthews speaking to RNC
President Reince Priebus on Morning Joe
Later when Priebus alleged that Obama was looking at European
policies for guidance, Matthews lost it again.
"Where do you get this
from?" Matthews shouted. "This is insane." He charged that Priebus was "playing
that card again."
"Let's just work on tone," Brzezinski said. "Chris, let
him answer the question," Scarborough said.
"I'm not going to get into a
shouting match with Chris so you guys can move on," Priebus said. "Because
you're losing, that's why," Matthews said. "Garbage, garbage," Priebus
muttered.
“I think Obama’s policies have created a sense that, for whatever
reason, he’s looking guidance as far as health care is concerned, as far as our
spending is concerned, as far as these stimulus packages are concerned, that
he’s looking to Europe for guidance,” said Priebus on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” at
the start of what would become a heated back and forth.
“What? Where do
you get this from? That’s insane,” responded Matthews. “You mean the fact that
every president we’ve had has tried to offset the economic cycle with stimulus
going the other direction is somehow European?”
“We’ve got to get the
debt under control,” said Priebus.
“What does that have to do with Europe
and this foreignization of the government. You’re doing it now. Saying that he’s
influenced by foreign influences?” said Matthews.
PRIEBUS: But I think Obama’s policies have created a sense that for
whatever reason, he’s looking to guidance [from Europe] as far as health care is
concerned, as far as our spending is concerned …
MATTHEWS: What? Where do
you get this from? This is insane! You mean the Keynesian fiscal policy — you
mean the fact that every president we’ve had has tried to offset the economic
cycle with stimulus going the other direction is somehow European? … What’s this
got to do with Europe and this foreignization of the guy? You’re doing it now!
Saying he’s influenced by foreign influences? You’re playing that card again.
What’s this European thing of yours? What are you up to with this constant that
he’s not really domestic?
PRIEBUS: You don’t think the take-over of
our health care system called Obamacare is a problem for most
Americans?
MATTHEWS: Let me tell you some history, sir. Teddy Roosevelt,
Franklin Roosevelt pushed for that, Truman pushed for that, were they all under
the influence of Europe? Where do you get this from?
PRIEBUS: I’m not
going to get into a shouting match with Chris, so you guys can just move
on.
Tropical Storm Isaac has caused the Republicans to postpone the opening night of their Convention in Tampa Florida. I would make a Pat Robertson joke here, but it's too obvious. It is a pity that the Republicans are suddenly dependent on information from NOAA and the Hurricane Hunters, which are funded by our tax money and use science to do their jobs - *horrors*. I'm sure they'd rather cut out all funding - at least Mitt has a clear conscience, since hasn't paid any taxes towards it. I'm sure Gov. Scott will be calling FEMA as soon as the storm passes over like all Red State Governors.
Jokes abound - I'll be posting more on Snark Amendment this weekend, so check there tomorrow. Here is my previous post on Isaac: Hurricane Isaac May Blow-Out Tampa
Before postponing #RNC2012 did the GOP ask Todd Akin if hurricane Isaac is legitimate? @pourmecoffee
‘‘Our first priority is ensuring the safety of delegates, alternates, guests, members of the media attending the Republican National Convention, and citizens of the Tampa Bay area,’’ party chairman Reince Priebus said in an emailed announcement that followed private conversations involving presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign, security officials and others.
Priebus added that forecasters have predicted that convention-goers ‘‘may encounter severe transportation difficulties due to sustained wind and rain’’ on Monday, the day the convention had been scheduled to open.
The announcement said that while the convention would officially be gaveled into session on Monday as scheduled, the day’s events would be cancelled until Tuesday.
That meant Romney’s formal nomination would be postponed by a day, from Monday to Tuesday, but the balance of the four days of political pageantry and speechmaking would go on as scheduled.
Florida Governor Rick Scott, a Republican, declared a state of emergency and said he was cancelling his own appearance at the convention in order to focus on the safety of all 19 million people in the state.
Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, a Democrat, had sought to calm jitters about the weather, saying the storm might bring heavy rain to Tampa on the first of the four-day convention but that this would be followed by sunny skies.
"There may be wet shoes, but every day after Monday ought to be fine," Buckhorn told Fox News before the Republicans announced the one-day delay to the start of the convention proper.
Vice President Joe Biden has canceled a trip to Tampa and other Florida cities because of the approaching storm, Obama's Democratic campaign said.
Isaac is not the only storm out in the Atlantic, but it's the only one threatening Florida at the present time. The remnants of Tropical Storm Joyce are off to the east (yellow circle) with only 10% chance of reforming into something dangerous. The next storm just coming off the coast of Africa looks bigger, with a 50% chance.
