Katharine Hayhoe, lead author of the National Climate Assessment, responds to Santorum and others claiming she's in it for the money

I couldn't resist the following aside in Trump disbelieves his own administration's climate change report to the astonishment of Trevor Noah.

LOL, Rick Santorum.  I thought I was done with him.  Nope, Frothy is still not taking climate change seriously.  Furthermore, I find his line about the scientists being in it for the money really insulting and ignorant, as well as a step backwards for him.

I then dismissed him as a sideshow.  That written, I stumbled across CNN interviewing Katharine Hayhoe, the lead author of the National Climate Assessment that Santorum and Trump both dismissed, who responded to both of them better than I could manage.  Watch and listen to her in Scientist laughs at climate change skeptics.

Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist who assisted government agencies in publishing a report predicting devastating damages from climate change, said she in no way benefited financially from helping to write it.

As an academic and scientist, I can tell my readers that she's absolutely right.  Her salary from Texas Tech would be the same if she were studying climate change or astrophysics.  Also, she may be comfortable and secure in being tenured, but she's not going to be rich from her science.  The idea is indeed laughable.  "Rolling in dough?  More like rolling on the floor laughing."

By the way, I have mentioned Hayhoe in this blog before.  She's the narrator of a video from Texas Tech about the likely spread of dengue fever this century because of climate change that I embedded in Heat wave and climate change news for the week of Bastille Day.  Hey, Dr. Hayhoe, it's good to see you again!

Trump disbelieves his own administration's climate change report to the astonishment of Trevor Noah

The last time I wrote about President Trump denying climate change, it was in the context of Seth Meyers taking a closer look at Trump's remarks about Finland raking its forests.  As I wrote then, "Trump so badly wants to make this about forest management instead of climate change that he will make stuff up."  Now, when faced by a U.S. government report on climate change only a month after the IPCC report, Trump continues to deny climate change.  That inspired The Daily Show with Trevor Noah to post Trump Contradicts His Own Administration’s Climate Change Report.

Despite the Trump administration’s most recent report on man-made climate change, the president continues to deny the science behind global warming; meanwhile, cable news outlets continue to bring on non-scientists to share their personal opinions on the situation.

LOL, Rick Santorum.  I thought I was done with him.  Nope, Frothy is still not taking climate change seriously.  Furthermore, I find his line about the scientists being in it for the money really insulting and ignorant, as well as a step backwards for him.

Santorum is a sideshow.  The main act, Trump himself, continued to double down on climate change denial, as Noah chronicled in Manafort’s Double Flip, Trump’s Climate Change Jibberish and Ivanka’s Email Snafu two days after the clip above was uploaded to YouTube.

It’s a turbulent week for Team Trump as Paul Manafort violates his cooperation agreement with Robert Mueller, the president continues to clumsily refute startling climate change reports, and Ivanka is confronted about her use of a private email.

Ha!  That's the best comedic use of "Arrival" I have ever seen.  As for the use of Trump clips, it reminds me of both Trump is coming and he's building a wall and Darth Trump.  Trump out of context is so much funnier and much less dangerous.

Drink to candidates for the fifth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News

I concluded Silly candidates, real and fictional, for the fifth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News with the following warning.

I'm far from done with the presidential election.  Prepare to follow the advice of Bluto from "Animal House" and drink heavily at the prospect of Donald Trump becoming President.

Appropriately enough for a Flashback Friday as well as the anniversary of my first entry on Trump's candidacy, I begin with Drinks and drinking games for Donald Trump and the GOP debates published August 2, 2015.  It ended the year as the tenth most read entry of the fifth year of this blog with 973 page views and 12 comments, which made it the most commented on entry posted during the fifth year of this blog.  It was not, however, the entry that got the most comments during the blogging year just past.  That honor goes to Science fiction speaks to our current anxieties, which had 46 of its 54 comments posted during last year because of a battle with a gaggle of spammers.  That is a story for another entry; time to return to drinks for Trump.

Like my other entries in this retrospective series, I'm being a good environmentalist and recycling what I've already written about how the entry earned its page views, beginning with this passage from Record page views for August 2015 and other monthly meta.

The second entry I shared at both Greer's and Kunstler's blogs as well as all the political groups on Facebook was "Drinks and drinking games for Donald Trump and the GOP debates" published August 2, 2015.  This was the most read of both the Trump entries and the drink entries last month, earning 317 page views, 346 according to the raw counter.  It was the third most read overall and either the second according to the default counter or the first according to the raw counter among all entries posted during August.  It earned another honor, being the most commented on entry with 10 comments.

Here's my comment on Where Candidates Fear to Tread at Kunstler's blog.

I agree with you that Trump is a clown who exposes the lack of seriousness among both the politicians and their constituents, although the latter are quite serious in their rage, if not in the policies they'd liked enacted to satisfy it.  That's why I decided to have some fun with Drinks and drinking games for Donald Trump and the GOP debates.  The viewers aren't going to get any serious responses to the issues you listed, so they may as well enjoy themselves getting blotto to the candidates.

I wrote less about the entry at Greer's blog and more about related ones.  Read my comment on "The Suicide of the American Left" for yourself and see.

"There’s Donald Trump, whose campaign is shaping up to be the loudest invocation of pure uninhibited führerprinzip since, oh, 1933 or so..."

And whose candidacy has been the best thing for a media driven by page views and clicks so far this campaign season.  When my wife watched his announcement, she remarked that Trump looked and sounded like The Penguin running for Mayor.  Both of them are cartoons of what a working stiff thinks a rich person should be.  Then his campaign picked up steam and an article I wrote for Examiner.com about his coming in second in a Michigan poll has been the most read story for the past year.  Now that he's in first, the best thing to do about him is to play a drinking game for his campaign appearances and the debates.   Time to stock up on booze.

That wasn't the only time the entry made the top ten.  The Monthly meta for February 2016 also had a paragraph about it.

Two actions propelled "Drinks and drinking games for Donald Trump and the GOP debates" back into the top ten--tweeting the link before every Republican debate and sharing it at The Archdruid Report.  The latter happened when another reader asked what was in a Trump Sandwich.  I responded "I have no idea, but I can tell you six different recipes for Trump cocktails."  Those were enough to earn the entry 156 page views, making it the eighth most read entry of the month.

I also shared it at the political groups on Facebook before every Republican debate.  I expect, if there are debates between Clinton and Trump, I'll be sharing the link then, too.

Trump wasn't the only candidate I wrote a drink recipe for last year.  Follow over the jump for something brown and frothy.

Four candidates bid farewell after Iowa

I wrote that "I'll have more about Frothy and three other candidates quitting later" in The smart money and endorsements are more for Rubio than ever.  I'm outsourcing serious commentary on this news to PBS's Washington Week, which posted Four candidates exit 2016 race, Fiorina fights to be on debate stage, Gilmore gets 4 votes in Iowa to its YouTube account as a web extra.

After disappointing finishes in the Iowa caucuses, four presidential candidates left the 2016 race including Republicans Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Rand Paul and Democrat Martin O'Malley. Reid Wilson and Doyle McManus discuss why these candidates struggled to gain traction. Plus, Carly Fiorina is being left off the next Republican debate stage, despite being one of only nine remaining Republican candidates. And another Republican, Jim Gilmore, picked up only 12 votes in the Iowa caucuses.

Follow over the jump for my good-byes to each of the candidates no longer contesting their parties' nominations.

The smart money and endorsements are more for Rubio than ever

In December, I noted that the smart money is moving from Rubio to Cruz but the endorsements aren't.  The betting lines at PredictWise showed that people were bidding up Cruz's chances while bidding down Rubio's.  Meanwhile, Rubio racked up seven endorsements during December to Cruz's one.  Based on Cruz's win and Rubio's third place showing in Iowa, one would think that the bettors would say "we made a good bet, double down."  Nope.  It turns out I skipped a step, as my comment at PM Carpenter's blog shows.

PredictWise, which had been predicting that Rubio was the most likely nominee until a couple of weeks ago, is now even more firmly betting (literally, so pun fully intended) on a Rubio victory. Rubio was last the favorite at 33% chance to win when Trump passed him. Yesterday, Trump peaked at 52% before falling to 26%. Rubio jumped from 33% to 55% overnight.

That was two days ago.  This morning, Rubio's odds are now at 60%, while Trump has fallen to 21%, Cruz has held steady at 14% (his odds had dipped briefly to 4% before the caucus, so confident were some bettors that Trump was on his way to winning the nomination), and Jeb! is at 4%.  Rubio comes in third and his chances go up, while Cruz wins and his chances fall?  Nate Silver has an answer in Why Iowa Changed Rubio’s And Trump’s Nomination Odds So Much.

Presidential nominations are a lot like the stock market. In the long run, they’re reasonably well governed by the fundamentals. In the short run, they can be crazy. Iowa represented the equivalent of a stock market correction, a sign that sanity might prevail after all.

In the stock market, the fundamentals consist of things like the profitability and growth of a company. In the nomination process, the most important fundamentals are what we call electability (can the candidate win in November?) and ideological fit (does the candidate hold positions in line with the consensus of her party?). A party would prefer to nominate a candidate who scores well in both categories.

Rubio fits the bill, perhaps uniquely among the remaining Republican candidates. His image with general election voters is not great, but it’s better than the other leading Republicans. He’s also quite conservative. That’s convenient, because Republican voters are quite conservative also. In fact, Rubio is almost exactly as conservative as the average GOP primary voter.

Nate agrees with Rubio's movement up, but he thinks that the market overcorrected on Cruz.

That doesn’t mean the betting markets have things exactly right; I think they’re too low on Cruz, for instance.

Just the same, this is very much a "Party Decides" argument Nate is making.  Follow over the jump for how that is playing out with endorsements.

Pataki packs it in

The pattern of another debate, another dropout from the GOP contest that I pointed out when Lindsey Graham suspended his campaign has finally been broken.  The Associated Press reports Pataki Announces He's Dropping White House Bid.

Former New York Gov. George Pataki is telling supporters he's ready to drop his bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

Yeah, George, I have faith that the American people will elect the right person, too, but it won't be any of your fellow Republicans.

That's the unfiltered farewell, which is an ad for the other establishment-oriented candidates.  ABC News has some of the story behind he announcement in George Pataki Drops Out of 2016 Presidential Race.

Pataki announced his candidacy this past May. "Our system is broken," he said in his announcement video. "Washington has grown too big, too powerful, too expensive and too intrusive. This is exactly what the founding fathers feared."

But he failed to gain traction in the polls, averaging 1 percent. He did not make it onto the main stage for any of the GOP debates, and was eliminated from the Fox Business Network undercard debate.

Financially, Pataki's campaign was struggling, spending more than he was taking in. The most recent financial disclosure showed him raising $134,000, but spending $348,000.

So, he had essentially no support, he was going to be cut off from free exposure, and he was out of money.*  All three of those are good reasons to get out of the contest.  Honestly, he lasted longer than a lot of people thought.  I expected him to drop out when Bobby Jindal left.  He managed to last an extra two months past that.

So, who benefits from Pataki leaving and who drops out next?  The answer to the first question is the most moderate GOP candidate left, which is Chris Christie.  It won't be much, but it might bring him third place and another delegate in New Hampshire.

As for who is dropping out next, look at this photo from the second debate.


All of them are now gone except Santorum.  I've said farewell, Frothy before.  I'll be happy to say it again.

*Pataki was so broke that he used up his equal time from NBC for Trump appearing on Saturday Night Live to air his departure announcement.  Well, it was use it or lose it, so he used it on his way out.  Speaking of using things, Pataki's drink selections can be reused for Trump and Clinton, who are both New Yorkers.  Yes, I'm a good environmentalist; I recycle.

Republicans on climate change and energy at the CNBC debate

CNBC asked only one candidate a question about climate change in last night's prime time debate.  Climate Eye on YouTube has the clip in Christie asked sole climate question at prime time GOP debate.


I'm going to be a good environmentalist and recycle what I wrote about Christie's response last time in Republicans vs. Democrats on climate change at the debates so far.

Here is a meme I posted at Michigan Liberal last year.

My comment at the time was "I think we're hitting stage three, with a few people transitioning to stage four.  So, how long before we get to stage five?"  Rubio has moved to stage four, while Christie is starting to move to stage five.  That's an improvement of sorts, but not much.  At least they recognize that climate change is real, but they [don't] prioritize it very highly.

With this answer, Christie has definitely moved to state five, except that his response is in the present tense, not the past tense.  At least he's recognizing climate change as a problem and renewable energy as a solution and doing so in a way that's consistent with his party's ideology.  I can live with a position like that.

While the main event had only one question about climate change, the early debate had three responses to the topic.  Follow over the jump for clips of George Pataki, Lindsey Graham, and Rick Santorum addressing the issue.

There's a Santorum cocktail, too

I'm not done with drinks for Republican candidates today.  In my research for Drink a Flaming Volcano for Jindal, I found out that a bar in Brooklyn came up with a drink named after Rick Santorum in 2012.  The Brooklyn Paper broke the story in Fourth Avenue watering hole serves Santorum.

Brooklynites can’t vote on Super Tuesday, but that doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy a little Santorum.

A Fourth Avenue watering hole is pouring a delightfully sinful drink named after Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum — and the dirty Google problem that has haunted him ever since he irked syndicated sex columnist Dan Savage.

“People really like it even though it’s named after something gross — both the person and the Dan Savage meaning,” said John Rauschenberg, co-owner of Pacific Standard. “It’ll be an election fixture at least until primary season is over.”

The duo behind the beer hole near St. Mark’s Place often put out cocktails with suggestive names, such as the Corn Holed Fashioned or Mike Gallego’s Cup.

But the Santorum, a milky mixture of Baileys, orange vodka, bitters and chocolate flakes, seems to be sticking.
...
“When he was winning in the polls, I thought, ‘OK, I’ll do a Santorum,’” said Jon Stan, co-owner and creator of the scandalous social lubricant. “We’ll keep it around until he’s irrelevant. I hope he’s there the whole way.”

Since Santorum is running again and will be participating in tonight's early debate, he's relevant again, so it's time to revive this drink.  Follow over the jump for more media coverage of this brown frothy concoction.

Trump's supporters display their poor writing skills

I'm not through with The Penguin Donald this week.  I stumbled across this item from The Moderate Voice found via Crooks and Liars that demonstrates how one can tell a lot about candidates through their supporters.

Why are we not surprised that Carly Fiorina’s fans have the best grammar, spelling and punctuation among the Republican presidential candidates and Donald Trump’s have the worst?

That’s based on an analysis from Grammarly, an automated proofreading company, which evaluated the supporters of the GOP candidates. Fiorina’s fans had 6.3 errors per hundred words in their Facebook comments, while Trump’s backers had 12.6 errors per 100 words. Only comments of 15 words or more were analyzed, and Grammarly ignored common slang words and stylistic variations (for instance, the use of serial commas, using numerals instead of spelling out numbers, using contractions). In total, roughly 9,000 words were evaluated for each candidate.

In ascending order of misteaks . . . er, mistakes per 100 words, Ben Carson’s supporters were second with 6.6, Lindsay Graham and George Pataki with 7.2 each, Ted Cruz 7.7, John Kasich 7.7, Jeb Bush 7.9, Mike Huckabee 8.0, Bobby Jindal 8.2, Chris Christie 8.3, Rand Paul 8.4, Marco Rubio 8.8, Scott Walker 10.6, Ric Santorum 11.5, and Rick Perry second-to-last with 12.5.

Follow over the jump for a graphic from USA Today showing these findings.

On American political parties held captive by their interest groups and ideologies

In the comments to Dark Age America: The End of the Old Order, Purple Tortoise asked the following.

Given the widespread obvious discontent, I have been surprised to see that no mainstream politician has really gone for grabbing the populist center and run on reining in the banks, restricting offshoring and immigration, and ceasing involvement in foreign wars. It seems like it would have been a great vote-getter to me. What am I missing?

Tortoise was quite obviously playing with Greer's idea that fascism is a totalitarianism that grows out of a disenfranchised center, a topic I elaborated on in The Archdruid on Fascism, part 2.  Neither Greer nor anyone else answered him directly for five days, so I decided to chime in.

What you're missing is that none of the top four parties in this country will support that combination of positions. Each party will support some or even most of them, but will find at least one of them anathema, so there is no home for that platform among them.

The Republican Party won't consider reining in the banks or ceasing intervention in foreign wars; the closest one got to those positions in the GOP was Ron Paul, who was interested in "Ending the Fed," but I don't know what he thinks about other big banks. I don't recall his son Rand continuing that policy. Both are still anti-interventionist, and both make the mainstream power brokers in their party furious. Note that Ron Paul didn't even get as far as either Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich in the 2012 primaries. [His son Rand] is going to have an uphill fight getting through them in 2016 as well.

The Democratic Party won't support strong restrictions on immigration; they're having enough trouble on illegal immigration. Restrictions on immigration would be considered an expression of racism, and the Democrats include racial and ethnic minorities in their coalition, some of whom would be most displeased by an anti-immigrant stance.

The Libertarians would find restrictions on the banks, outsourcing, and immigration against their principles. The party actually advocates for open borders for both money and people.

The Greens might go for restricting immigration except that they don't want to be seen as racist, either. Since being pro-redistribution and anti-racist are both Left positions, it's hard to be anti-immigrant and be seen as Left in the U.S. these days.

The largest party in the U.S. who might be for all those things is the Constitution Party. Any politician in that group who can wrap those ideas in a flag while carrying a cross will get away with them. Pity the party is the personification of amateur hour in politics.

Neither Purple Tortoise nor Greer had anything to say about my comment, but they had the excuse that it was approved on Wednesday morning, and Greer and all of his readers were probably already looking forward to his next essay.

Just the same, consider Purple Tortoise's question and my response an explanation of why, despite Duverger's Law working, people are frustrated by the major parties and may not even be able to find a fit in the minor parties.  Not all possible combinations of positions can be accomodated within them, so those who do have those collections of views have no one to represent them.  Getting rid of the current two major parties won't solve that problem.

Game of Thrones: 2012 Campaign Edition

Eric Kain at Forbes had an intriguing flight of fancy over at Forbes.

[W]hat if instead of Romney and Obama, the candidates were characters from the popular book series A Song of Ice and Fire and its HBO adaptation Game of Thrones?
...
[T]here are spooky parallels between the fictional series and the stranger-than-fiction political figures of our times.

As they say, a picture’s worth a thousand words….

He's not kidding.

Farewell, Frothy!

I could type several paragraphs about Rick Santorum dropping out of the contest for the 2012 Republican nomination for President. Instead, I'll just take advantage of this month's Nablopomo theme and Kiss Him Goodbye. Take it away, Bananarama!

Follow-up to Examiner.com article on Michigan primary

In my Examiner.com article on the Michigan primary I included the following in the article itself but didn't quote it in my post of a couple of days ago.

According to the latest figures from the Secretary of State, Romney won the Republican primary with 41.07% of the 996,126 votes cast in the G.O.P. side of the race, Santorum came in second with 37.86%, Paul placed third with 11.62%, and Gingrich finished out of the money with 6.53%. Despite Romney's clear victory in the statewide popular vote, he and Santorum split the state's delegates to the Republican National Convention evenly, at least according to the preliminary results on the Michigan Republican Party's web page for the primary. Romney and Santorum each won seven congressional districts, earning 14 delegates apiece, and split the two delegates determined by the statewide vote, for a total of 15 delegates for each candidate.

It turns out that the Michigan Republican Party decided to allocate both at-large delegates to Romney. Chuck Stokes of WXYZ-TV explains.

The state Republican Party has set the delegates that will be awarded, based on the results of Tuesday's primary.

As Stokes explains, Romney now has 16 delegates, while Santorum has 14, so the delegates are no longer evenly split. On the one hand, that's a reasonable result given the outcome of the vote. On the other, it wasn't what the candidates or the media, including me, believed would happen given how their understanding of the rules. I'll let the Detroit Free Press explain.

The vote came despite the party’s rules that the two at-large delegates are supposed to be awarded on a proportional basis based on the statewide popular vote.
...
Saul Anuzis, a member of the credentials committee, said the party’s rules were passed in early February to award the two at-large delegates to the statewide winner, but that a memo sent, in error, to the candidates’ campaigns said the delegates would be distributed proportionately.

“While we regret the error in the memo, it does not change what was voted on by the committee,” Anuzis said. “This is much to do about nothing.”

This decision didn't sit well with two members of the committee, one of whom spoke to the Detroit Free Press about it.

Former Attorney General Mike Cox is a supporter of Romney and even acted as a surrogate for the candidate on several occasions during the last three weeks.

But Wednesday night’s 4-2 vote to award the two at-large delegates to Romney didn’t pass the smell test for Cox.

“I have this crazy idea that you follow the rules,” Cox said. “I’d love to give the at-large delegates to Mitt Romney, but our rules provide for strict apportionment.”

This is the latest episode in a long-running comedy of errors in the Republican primaries and caucuses. I'll let Taegan Goddard of Political Wire sum it up.

The Republican presidential campaign has been one of the sloppiest in memory.

Mitt Romney was declared the winner in Iowa until several days later miscounted votes were "found" which put Rick Santorum ahead. Romney was named the victor in Maine without all caucus votes counted because they were "lost" in someone's email. Now, the Michigan delegate count was changed two days after the primary either due to sloppiness, ambiguity in the rules or a backroom power play.

It sure makes you wonder.

The question he asked was "Why so sloppy?" The answers range from simple incompetence to lack of belief in democracy. I'm not going to pick one. Instead, I'll just repeat that I am glad I am no longer a Republican!

Examiner.com article on the Michigan primary

As I just wrote:

As for my analysis of last night's primary, stay tuned. I'll link to and post an excerpt to an article I just started writing for Examiner.com.

The article is posted. Here is the link and lede paragraph.

Romney wins Michigan and Washtenaw County but splits delegates with Santorum
Washtenaw County Elections 2010 Examiner

For the order of finish of the top four Republican candidates, their vote percentages, and the splitting of the delegates between the top two candidates, Washtenaw County mirrored the results of the state of Michigan as a whole. On the other hand, the turnout, percentage of the vote cast in the Democratic primary, and order of the lower ranked candidates on the Republican ballot differed significantly from the rest of the state and displayed Washtenaw County's distinctive take on politics. Elsewhere in the state, Democrats crossing over to vote in the Republican primary may have had an effect on the result in at least one Congressional district.

For the rest of the article, surf over to Examiner.com. My blog here isn't monetized, but Examiner.com is.

As for anything I left out of the article, note that I assign part of the responsibility for Santorum's splitting the delegates between the Republicans in the Michigan legislature, who came up with the redistricting plan that moved Calhoun County out of the 7th District and replaced it with Monroe County. That worked to protect my former representative Tim Walberg from a challenge by my other former representative Mark Schauer, but it also made the district more friendly to Santorum. Without that slick move, Romney would have won that district and its two delegates. The rest I give to Democrats crossing over to vote in the Republican primary, although the clearest example involves Democrats voting for Ron Paul, not for Rick Santorum. Sorry, Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, Operation Hilarity wasn't as effective as you thought it was, despite your bragging. Even so, the video is hilarious.






In other news, one of my New Year's resolutions was to resume writing for Examiner.com. As you can see, I finally got around to it.

Romney wins and the elephants depart for Ohio

WOOD-TV 8 on YouTube has the summary.




Romney wins Michigan primary, called it a "big win."

WXYZ-TV has the full speeches for both Romney and Santorum if you wish to watch them. I won't inflict either of them upon you by embedding them, especially since my wife and I got fed up with Santorum's and turned off the TV after about five minutes.

As for my analysis of last night's primary, stay tuned. I'll link to and post an excerpt to an article I just started writing for Examiner.com. Yeah, I'll out myself, but a lot of you know who I am anyway.

LOL, Foster Friess=Foster's Freeze

I'm so glad nonnie9999 at Hysterical Raisins is back!



Full-sized original at Brainless Friess on Hysterical Raisins.

Here's a properly formatted version of my comment to nonnie9999's post:

Welcome back! To thank you for your return, I’ll let you in on an inside joke only people from California would know. When I first heard Friess’s name, I thought “this has to be a joke; who the hell is named after an ice cream stand?” Yes, there is a fast food chain specializing in soft serve ice cream in California called Foster’s Freeze. Even better, it used to be called Foster’s *Old Fashioned* Freeze. Here’s the link to the Wikipedia page. You can’t make this stuff up!

Whenever I hear the name of Santorum's sugar daddy major superPAC donor, I don't see him, I see these images instead:







Put the two names together, and the result is this:




Full-sized original at Winnie Toons.

Now you know why there were people in Bill Maher's studio audience snickering at the man's name week before last. They (and I) weren't the only ones giggling at the similarity. So were Dennis Miller and commenters at Crooks & Liars, Democratic Underground, Washington Monthly, and Huffington Post--and that's just from the first page of Google results! As for the best comment of the bunch, I give that honor to Paul the Sax Guy at Crooks & Liars:

"I knew Foster's Freeze, Foster's Freeze was an employer, and he, sir is no Foster's Freeze."

As Karoli at Crooks & Liars said, "Poifect!"

Second day of WXYZ on the Michigan Republican Primary

Here are some videos that didn't make it into The GOP Circus returns to town, one because it was posted to WXYZ's YouTube account after the I posted yesterday's entry, one because it wasn't relevant then, and three simply because I missed them the first time. Here they are.

First, some old news, the state of the race three days ago.






Dead heat in GOP race

That was three days ago. The polling situation changed rapidly enough in two days that WXYZ posted a follow-up clip yesterday.






Rick Santorum has a lead in Michigan over Mitt Romney

Someone actually gave this video a dislike rating, which is rare for WXYZ videos on YouTube. Based on the one comment so far, it probably was a Democrat, although one might have expected that it was a Romney supporter.

Santorum may be the front-runner in the polls, but Romney is still being targeted by Democrats for his positions, as expressed in a TV ad and op-ed piece in the Detroit News about the auto bailout.






Speaking of the auto bailout, here's the most recent piece of news to come out about its aftermath.

General Motors Company announced Thursday a net income for the 2011 calendar-year attributable to common stockholders of $7.6 billion.

That came out two days after Romney doubled down on his opposition to the bailout. As Rick Perry would say, oops.

Finally, Rick Santorum gets his time in the spotlight, just like Romney did.

7 Action News reporter Julie Banovic speaks one-on-one with Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

If you get bored listening to Frothy, concentrate on his nose and notice that, like the person it belongs to, it turns to the right.

The GOP Circus returns to town

The elephants came to Michigan for a debate last November, which produced one of the epic fails of the campaign so far. However, that was only for one night. The remaining four candidates have returned to Michigan, this time for two weeks until the primary on February 28th. WXYZ on YouTube reports.





GOP Contenders Campaign In Michigan

While the candidates themselves have just arrived, their campaigns have been active here for weeks. Ron Paul's campaign has been canvassing since the middle of January, when I found a flyer from the Michigan campaign chair on my door. Also, Newt Gingrich's campaign was running ads at the beginning of the month. However, those aren't the candidates WXYZ has been covering. Instead, the station is devoting its airtime to the two front-runners, Romney and Santorum. Native son Romney, who grew up in Oakland County, is getting marquee treatment, both from the station and the local GOP establishment. In fact, Governor Snyder endorsed him, as shown in this WXYZ clip.





Michigan Governor Rick Snyder endorsed Mitt Romney as he visits Michigan.

Romney even sat down for an interview with WXYZ's Val Clark.





Val Clark talks one on one with Mitt Romney.

Romney may be the native son, but Rick Santorum is the front-runner, so he gets his own segment.





Presidential candidate Rick Santorum appeared in Michigan to campaign.

Looks like The Froth has risen to the top again.

Worth 1000 words on Santorum

I saw the following at Daily Kos last night.





My response was, "I'm more likely to believe the guy with the hat."





Yes, I like my politics with a science fiction angle, too. Just ask Newt Gingrich.

By the way, my cat didn't like the video. In protest, he stepped all over my keyboard. And you wonder why there are more cat macros than dog macros.

Last night was the beginning of the primary/caucus season for 2012

It was also the beginning of the end for some of the candidates, too.

WXYZ-TV on YouTube reposted the summary of last night's events from ABC News.





WOOD-TV on YouTube has the details on what Iowa's caucus results mean for the rest of the campaign, including here in Michigan.





Good riddance to Michele Bachmann! In fact, I don't have kind words to say about any of the candidates who actively campaigned in Iowa. Here's what I wrote about the field on Kunstler's blog Monday and reposted on Is this it?, the only other politics blog on the January 2011 Nablopomo blogroll.*

The Republican candidates are a bunch of clowns. Rick Perry is so dumb, a zombie was walking down the street in Des Moines the other day, saw Governor Goodhair, and turned away to look elsewhere for brains. Newt Gingrich doesn't even have the organization to get his name on the ballot in the state where he now lives, Virginia. Bachmann is exactly the kind of maniac that would promise cheap gas to keep suburbia alive. Ron Paul is stopped clock who is right twice a day, namely at 4:20. Rick Santorum is famous because his surname is a synonym for froth. Romney is a corporate robot who will do whatever his programmers tell him to do. Poor Huntsman had to sign on to climate denial in order to stay viable. Finally, when I tell people about Buddy Roemer, who has the closest thing to James's "My Tea Party" platform, the response is "who?"

Other than Huntsman and Roemer, neither of whom competed in Iowa, these candidates make me glad that I haven't been a Republican or conservative since 2000.

*It's only the 4th, and I'm already the only politics blogger actively participating in Nablopomo. Is this it? gave up after only two days. Too bad. She showed promise. Instead, I'll be reading The Crunchy Wife, who is very much about sustainability on the personal level.