Bend me, shape me

   

Sure, something like this could be created for any candidate who has gone through a contested primary race,  but the underlying theme of shape-shifting is undeniable. I don't think any of us know what we're going to get with a President Romney.

And now, of course, half these characters are flip-flopping, too, as they are out there talking up Gov. Romney as their guy.

Good thing principles are only for the little people.

For the thoughtful

I paraphrase Mark Twain.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are an asshole than to open it and remove all doubt.





If you want to join Mitt in griping about all those layabouts who don't pay federal income taxes, please don't leave a comment until you've read this.

And for more giggles.

Somewhere in these demographics

You'll find me.

Radical!

Question posed to an Wall Street Occupier:  Do you know who Saul Alinsky is?
Answer:  Does he have a deli on the Lower East Side?

Question posed to Bob Grainger, Chair of the Lake County Democratic Committee: Do you know how Saul Alinsky is?
Answer: Al who?

Question posed to MathMan, a native of Chicago:  Do you know Saul Alinsky is?
Answer:  No. Why?
Me: Newt Gingrich is talking about him in relation to the President and he's trending on Twitter.
MathMan: Oh. Here, look at this graph of the x^2cos(1/x)

Question posed to a regular consumer of Fox News and right wing radio:  Who is Saul Alinsky?
Answer: He's the guy from Chicago who wrote Rules for Radicals which influenced the radical methods of Obama when he was a community organizer and who is now taking our country in the wrong direction with his radical ideas and trying to turn us into a radical European style socialist version of Europe. With its radical ideas. I think he was a communist.

Ah. And, of course, only radical liberals use Alinsky's principals for organizing.

Alinky's main message for organizing: Pick the target (Big Government), freeze it (Do Nothing Congress), personalize it (Gov't wants to take away YOUR rights), polarize it (We're going to take OUR country back). Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual (Obama) . Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame (Stop blaming Bush, this is YOUR mess, Obama!).

The Politics of Envy

Envy.

Mitt Romney, the man who has finally gotten to the head of the line, thinks we envy him and those of his stratospheric ilk.

Let's not lie to him or ourselves. We do envy him. But it's not for the reason he thinks.

Since it's rude for me to speak for you, I'll stick to why I am envious. My envy of Mitt Romney is specifically because he's never known what it's like to be financially insecure and it has nothing to do with his superior skills, hard work, or intelligence. By virtue of his birth, Romney has never had to worry about a lack of money. No, his only money worries have been about the accumulation of more wealth.

So that's the basis for my envy. What's at the root of my dislike for Romney is the fact that he seems unwilling to even imagine for a second what it's like for most Americans who have worked hard for the last thirty years and are still just running in place.

His refusal to acknowledge that there might be valid reasons for people to be pissed off tells us what we need to know about Mitt. He has no interest in understanding the plight of the middle and working classes, the poor. He subscribes to the idea that, unlike his situation of being born to wealth setting his destiny, if you're not rich like him, it's because you're not smart enough, you don't work hard enough. The fact that American socio-economic mobility is pretty much a myth and getting worse holds no sway with Romney.

I would say that by virtue of that same solid gold birth, perhaps Mitt Romney is incapable of empathy for the less fortunate, but then how do you explain wealthy families that breed bleeding heart liberals? Does it really come down to how the brain is wired?

Mitt Romney wants to run on his record as a businessman. Fine. Look at his record at Bain Capital where he was far more comfortable dealing with profits and numbers and data. People who lost their jobs were merely collateral damage. No, that's too generous. They were the cost of doing business and they were expendable.

Running a government is far different from running a business. The missions are different. Romney isn't smart enough to know that. As President, he would do just as he did at Bain. He would increase profits for the shareholders by any means just this side of legal while cutting out the waste and inefficiency.

What Americans need to understand is that unless you're a top investor, you are waste and inefficiency.

Read Bob Lefsetz on this.

For Rick Perry

You take the stage with what can only be called
A shit eating grin meets aw shucks.
Thunderous applause in your head, the adoration of the crowd
Tell us what we want to hear
Tell us what we know is true
You seize the mic like you seize the day
All gusto and outsized
A Lone Star, ready to rumble.
I close my eyes to listen to your message of redemption
The sinner nation needs you now.
You take a deep breath ready to speak, to sermonize
Tell us what we want to hear
Tell us what we know is true
Your detractors are many
The blue and cold-blooded serpents in the weeds
Not now, they hiss. Not ever.
A run from you would be a reminder
A visual and audio rerun of the last one,
The compassionate usurper
Inauthentic, a sneak-thief of your very self
He told them what they wanted to hear
He told them what they knew was true
Let them come then, you will not waver
Chosen, appointed, annointed
By the Christian God, sponsored by the Oil and Gas Industry and The Republican National Committee
You will be a force with which to reckon,
You reckon.
You're up there now
In front of the banner
The red of his blood, the white so pure, the true blue of the ages.
Tell us what we want to hear
Tell us what we know is true
My eyes remain shut
A wish that others will do the same
For when you speak, we are reminded
Of what we know is true.