Whirled News - Whirled News Ticker Tape

An exhausted and visibly discouraged Mitt Romney withdrew from the Republican presidential race yesterday, announcing that, “We simply ran out of issues on which I could change positions.”

Supporters of Romney made a last-ditch effort to persuade him to remain in the race, pointing out that he could go back over the list and start changing his positions again, but in the end Romney demurred, saying that that would only call into question the principles which his square jaw exemplifies.

“We ran a good campaign,” he told his supporters. “My ever-shifting positions clearly showed that I was the candidate of change. But in the end the Republican voters chose to reject expediently heartless conservatism for rock-hard heartless conservatism, and we must respect their verdict.”

Romney announced that he would take some time off to attend to pressing family issues. “Early in the campaign, in response to a question about why my fighting age sons didn’t enlist to fight in Iraq , I said that they were serving their country by helping me campaign for President,” he said. “Now that I’ve withdrawn from the race, I have to help them find some duffle bags and start packing.”……

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today ended her surprise visit to Afghanistan , returning home with two tons of crushed rubble. Confronting her critics who accused her of looting the country of its most valuable resources in order to build a new road outside her estate, Rice insisted that this was part of the long-promised United States rebuilding effort of the country.

“We have spent the last seven-and-a-half years since we promised to rebuild Afghanistan carefully considering how to best do it,” she said, “And these two tons of crushed rubble represent the beginning of a bold new initiative. We did not want to go about this the way we did in Iraq, by merely shipping two pallets of large denomination bills and passing the money directly out to corrupt officials [this is true]. Instead, under a contract with Halliburton, they will haul out tons of rubble in the next few years, sell it here and do something with some of the money to help rebuild some things over there.”….

Senator John McCain spoke yesterday to a national convention of conservatives, re-establishing his conservative credentials.

“Frankly, it’s a mystery to me how I could have ever been branded a liberal,” he said. “All I ever did remotely liberal was to propose some campaign financing reforms that turned out to be useless, and to propose some really high bars before allowing immigrants to attain legal status instead of arming our border patrol with conventional nuclear weapons. Oh, and I argued ineffectually against some tax cuts for the rich, but I’ve changed my mind on that one. I still believe that abortion should be illegal, that government should get out of the business of helping any poor and disabled who aren’t vets, that we should stay in Iraq for at least a few decades while fighting other wars under the cover of spreading democracy, and that business, not morality, is the engine that drives our country. Calling me a liberal is like calling Rudy Guiliani a liberal or like calling an elephant a flying machine.”

The Gay Republican #3 - Romney's Poll

Like a good American, I voted this Super Duper Tuesday. And like a good Republican, I voted early, by absentee ballot. The forty-one cents that it cost in first class postage was a cheap price to pay not to have to stand in line at a polling place, thinking “This is southern California; I bet I’m the only human in this room with enough brains to assemble a political thought other than ‘Fuck Bush.’”

This article won’t be posted for your consumption, dear reader, until (probably) Thursday, so its contents will hold sway over precisely nobody’s voting decision. But a news graphic in today’s Daily News provided some consolation; it announced that in Los Angeles County there are about 1.9 million registered Democrat voters and about 1.0 million Republicans. Consider as well the fact that the California Republican Party holds a closed primary, meaning that only registered Republicans can vote for the Republican nominee. Add to those two facts a third: the likely audience for this narrative’s venue is young, tattooed, and doesn’t have a 401(k). I think you’ll agree that even if this article had been published on Saturday, its effectiveness as a conservative electoral influence would still roughly equate to the effectiveness of a banner ad for Jim Cramer’s Mad Money on TheHungerSite.com!

(Aside: TheHungerSite.com is a gleaming illustration of the vapidity of liberalism. You go to the site, click a button, and it tells you that you just donated “a cup of food” to feed the hungry.
Really? My mouse click did that? Obviously not, but it makes the clicker feel as though his sheer “caring” made a difference. So you make your non-sacrifice, and you receive a belly full of happy feelings in return. Maybe tomorrow you’ll buy a TerraPass for your car; if you’re simple-minded enough to believe that your mouse-click fed a starving Ethiopian, then you’ll probably also swallow the idea that you can assuage your car-driving eco-guilt for a year by paying somebody on the other side of the planet $60 to reduce his carbon emissions accordingly.)

Rather than dance around it, I’ll just come out with it: I like Mitt Romney….

I have throughout the race. He’s a handsome, intelligent, well-spoken former Governor, who enjoyed fabulous success governing a state where his traditional Mormon roots put him at odds with a very liberal population. He implemented a universal health care system in Massachusetts that precludes (further) government bloat. (It works like car insurance: If you live in Mass, then you must carry health insurance. And if your employer doesn’t provide it and you can’t afford it, then the state will assist in paying for it.) Also, Romney has a track record of enviable business acumen, which would be well put to use helping our nation excel in a global economy.
And as if that’s not enough, he has five HOT sons. Have you seen those boys? Ben, Craig, Josh, Matt, and Tagg.

Gleaming, clean, pure-bred, Latter-Day fetish objects; the whole lot. If you figure that about 10% of the population is gay, then the odds of at least one of those boys being light in the loafers is about 41%. (If you’re scratching your head about where that number came from, stop reading this article immediately and go donate a cup of food at The Hunger Site.)

If Craig Romney ends up being the Mary of the group, I call “dibs!”

Anyway, Mitt Romney is the only viable conservative left in the race, so he’s my guy. I was leaning toward Fred Thompson for a bit, but he’s gone. I think that a Romney-Giuliani ticket would blow away either Hillary or Obama (or both) so that’s what I’m hoping for. At press time (figuratively speaking) the California polls have not closed yet, but Mitt Romney seems to be leading.

Other states however, as I see them on CNN.com right now, aren’t looking so good for Mitt.

The American press (with the glaring exception of right-wing talk radio) is audibly salivating over the possibility of Senator Lockjaw McCain being the Republican nominee. And by the look of things, their odds are improving by the day. My question is this:

What’s his appeal? To the Republican Party base, I mean. What does he offer us?

The Hanoi Hilton thing? Is that it? Enduring enemy torture might earn you a medal of honor, but it’s not the criteria we use to select our leaders.

I get the sense from what little TV news I see that there’s a common sentiment among voters that it’s John McCain’s “turn”. The nomination contest in 2000 was a close one (not really - he withdrew in March of 2000 - but people seem to remember it that way) and it was an ugly one and McCain has paid his dues and now it’s 2008 and it’s McCain’s turn.
This, to me, is the wildest imaginable perversion of electoral fundamentals.

Elections aren’t about the “rights” of the candidates! Elections are about the “rights” of the electorate. John McCain’s “my turn!” claim on the 2008 Republican nomination is about as valid as my claim on Craig Romney’s nipples.

My real problem with McCain though is simply the inverse of my affinity for Mitt Romney. McCain isn’t a conservative. His modus operandi is all pragmatism and no principle. If it’s politically expedient to oppose tax cuts or propose campaign contribution limits or nominate liberal judges, he’ll do it. And the press loves him for it, granting him fawning interviews and referring to him as a “maverick”, which only reinforces his bad behavior. The next time Katie Couric or Christiane Amanpour offer to lionize him for kneeing his Republican base squarely in the groin, he’ll do it again.

Strangely (or perhaps not) the reason McCain seems to be doing so well in the Republican primaries is that non-Republicans are voting for him. McCain has yet to win a majority, or even a plurality, of the conservative base Republican vote in any primary so far, with the shady exception of Florida. Romney gets those votes. McCain gets his support from independents and Democrats who ask for Republican ballots at the polls (see: South Carolina). This is a twist that makes me wonder why any of the state parties – Republican or Democrat – would allow non-members to help pick their nominees. Some think that it’s a clever idea, that sacrificing party self-determination will result in a more moderate candidate who will therefore be more “electable.” I, however, beg to differ. And I offer a counter-intuitive observation: Electability does not win elections.

Exhibit A: John Kerry.

Ronald Reagan defined conservatism as a three-legged stool; the three legs being fiscal policy, foreign policy, and social policy. Mitt Romney may have gone through his evolutions, but he seems to sit solidly on all three legs of the conservative stool. John McCain, on the other hand, seems to occupy all, any, or none, from day to day, depending on his mood (or perhaps his pollsters).

Conservatives – even moderate ones – had better wise up and start seeing through John McCain’s folksy “straight talk” myth, or else we’re all going to wind up having our conservative stool pushed in.

And not in a good way!

Whirled News Tonight - Illinois Presidential Primary Yields Surprises

February 5, 2008 (CHICAGO) —Results from the Illinois presidential primary have surprised pollsters and political pundits alike. On the Republican side, a runaway upset victory for Generalissimo Francisco Franco left observers scrambling for explanations. “It looks as if the majority of Republican voters have had enough of all this talk about change and have decided to cast their votes for the only candidate who promised no change at all,” said one observer. “In passing over John McCain and Mitt Romney, voters have clearly signaled that they want to stay with a candidate who combines the sentience of Ronald Reagan and the policies of George W. Bush.”

In the days leading up the election, the Generalissimo outflanked his opponents on two key issues. Hammering home his views on immigration by pointing out that the Spanish Civil War insurgency was largely composed of illegal immigrants, the Generalissimo thundered, “Never again must we let the democracy our party overthrew fall back into the hands of counterrevolutionaries who do not even speak our language.” The Generalissimo also took the steam out of his opponents’ proposals to jumpstart the troubled economy. “Our economy is muy bueno,” insisted the Generalissimo, who adapted a phrase recalling the heyday of the United States economy. “What is good for General Franco is good for the country,” he said.

Leading Republican contenders promptly accused Franco of dirty campaigning. “In the days before the election, thousands of Illinois voters received a mailing referring to me as the Mormon Jabber-wacko Liar,” complained Romney. John McCain also complained about a mass anonymous mailing pointing out that he would be the oldest elected President in the history of the country. “Generalissimo Franco himself ran his country quite competently while in a coma on his deathbed for almost a year,” said McCain, “and I intend to do the same.”

The Illinois Democrat primary also yielded a surprise. With 98 percent of the votes tallied, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were in an exact tie, not just in percentages but in raw numbers. “Apparently voters could not make up their minds whether to vote for the candidate of grand pronouncements and half-way measures or the candidate of bland pronouncements and half-way measures,” said an observer.

Whirled News - Mitt Romney Speaks On Mormonism

December 6, 2007 (CHICAGO)—As a recording of Ethel Mormon blasting out, “There’s no business like show business” played, presidential candidate Mitt Romney today strode to the podium and explained to the American people why his Mormon beliefs would not affect his presidency. “For one thing,” he said, “I share the same beliefs as every other American, that Jesus Christ is the son of God and that we find eternal salvation through belief in Him, and that everyone who does not capitalize the third personal singular pronoun when referring to Him is not entitled to any protection or consideration from the United States government which, after all, is founded on Judeo Christian principles, though I’m not sure the Judeo part really has any meaning any more.”

He also expressed outrage over any forms of religious intolerance, decrying “bigots who would treat members of any religion in ways that only agnostics, atheists or undocumented workers and their children should be treated.”

Romney insisted that his religious beliefs and the beliefs of his religious leaders belong in one domain and stop where the presidency is concerned. “Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin,” he said. “Render unto religious leaders what is the religious leaders’ and render unto millionaires the rest of the country.” Romney did however point out that as the first Mormon president, he would make one change in accordance with his Mormon beliefs, which would open up new opportunities for women. “It’s about time this country had four first ladies instead of one,” he said.