From the YouTube Comments:

theaustinpeay says:

Romney is very impressive. Even when he doesn't know he's being taped. He's very classy.

darthmills says:
wow, first time i have seen mitt get upset. refreshing. Go get em mitt! President Romney 08!!

5M1L3 says:
I wonder if all the people who complained that Mitt Romney's clips were to short will appreciate the length of this video? I do like the candid, off the air part, at the end.

SCOTTMSTER says:
I feel Jan Mickelson had a pre-planned agenda for Mitt Romney to explain his views on his LDS religion and make his religion an issue in his run for the presidency. It however turned into a GREAT off air and genuine perspective of how Mitt views his moral and religious convictions, how those morals and views intertwine to make him what he is and yet separate as a President.
Mitt wins again, what a classy Presidential candidate.
Scott Rasmussen
Gilbert. Az.

Labels: LDS Mormon Romney, religion

Illinois is having a state wide Straw Poll a the Illinois Fair. If you are interested in supporting Romney, and Illinois Resident, send me an email at:

jasonpbonham@gmail.com

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present to you Ms. Michelle Griffin. As reported by the Washington Post’s Michael Shear, Ms. Griffin got her 3.5 minutes of fame today as she heckled Mitt into a conversation about healthcare as he visited Manchester’s Red Arrow diner.



There is much debate in this country about the state of the nation’s healthcare system. Ms. Griffin brought up several points that most Americans have to deal with every day. Health Insurance premiums, doctor visit and prescription co-pay amounts, and the various other minutia all add up. Some health plans are better than others. Some aren’t worth the amount of ink it takes to print their forms. Everybody thinks the health care system can be made better.

Most politicians, including every single one of the presidential candidates (both Democratic and Republican) have some plan or grandiose idea on how to effect change in the health care system. Its not a small system. It only makes up 1/7th of the US economy. Some of these politicians – especially Hillary Clinton – have been on the heath care warpath for many years.

That said, only one politician has actually done something to improve the health care system of the people he was elected to serve. That politician is Mitt Romney – former Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. If you’ve clicked on the video above you know that Mitt tried to explain this system to Ms. Griffin – several times.

Ms. Griffin wasn’t interested in the health care plan Mitt put in place in the Bay State. What she wanted was someone to come in and tell her all her medical bills would be taken care of by the government – and she wouldn’t have to pay a cent.

Well, as one of the tax-payers who would have to foot the bill to make Ms. Griffin happy, this kinda irks me. So I have a memo for Ms. Griffin:

Stop Whining. Now would be a good time. I feel for the pain caused by your family’s medical situation. Really. I do. How can I say this? Because I have a family of my own with our own medical bills to pay. I work hard for my money and, with all due respect, I’m not sure I can afford to pay for your health care in addition to my own. That is, after all, what you are asking. Government money doesn’t come from some magical printing press in Washington, DC. It comes from guys like me who think we send far too much of our hard earned cash to that city.

You don’t like your health care plan? Do something about it. Yes, I know that might involve doing something other than waiting tables at the Red Arrow. Stop expecting government to solve your problems. Do you really want an organization that pays $700 for a toilet seat deciding what health care benefits you qualify for? Every politician coming through that door is trying to sell you something. You just might want to put more stock in the guy who’s already done something about the issue rather than putting your faith in the nebulous idea of socialized medicine. Socialized Medicine is just Canadian for “Colossal Failure”.
So, Michelle, you’ve got a lot to think about. You can either stop your whining and do something for yourself (and your family), or you can wait for someone like Hillary Clinton to do something to you. Either way, please stop whining. End Memo.

As for Mr. Shear, I don’t think his reporting could have been more slanted if he had actually tried – which I’m sure he did. Memo to Michael Shear: Its August. I’m sure you don’t get out of your air-conditioned DC office very much, but I’m pretty sure you know that August in New Hampshire is anything but cool. I’ve watched the video you put up, and forgive me for being so blunt (its what I do), but the one thing I didn’t see Mitt do was sweat. At all. This is a guy who has put together billion-dollar deals using only his wits, intelligence, and guts. He knows his stuff. No diner waitress is going to find a chink in his armor – despite all your wishes to the contrary. End Memo.

The MSM silliness factor is increasing exponentially. This is a race for the Oval Office. When are they going to get serious? Are they capable of being serious? Methinks not.

Labels: bias, healthcare, New Hampshire, washingont post

Stumbled on a great interview with Romney done by M.E. Sprengelmeyer of Rocky Mountain News here. One of the best parts was Romney articulating how a President should respond to public opinion:

SPRENGELMEYER: On the Iraq war, sometimes you see polls -- and it all depends how the question is phrased -- sometimes you see polls where the public is very dispirited, and that might lead a majority of the public to take an opinion that goes against what you might feel in your heart is the right strategy. How are you going to confront public opinion sometimes, when public opinion might say, 'Let's withdraw every troop immediately' but you might think something different? Are you afraid of the pressures of public opinion -- not just media, not just your opposing party, but public opinion. Do you sometimes have to go against popular opinion?

ROMNEY: You know, if I had grown up in politics and my whole life were politics and all I cared about was winning elections, then in that setting I could see how an individual might be very concerned about public opinion. I'm not in this for politics. I've only spent four years in political office. My life has been in the private sector, and the love of my life is my wife and my family. I'm in this to make a difference for America. And if I find that the American people significantly disagree with me, that means there are two things I have to do. Number one, understand why they think the way they do, and see if there's something that I may be missing. But number two, if I'm convinced that I'm right and they're not right, then I need to do the job of educating and communicating why I believe what I believe. I believe that the job of the president is not just commander in chief but also educator in chief. And in some cases, the president knows a lot that the American public doesn't know. And if that's the case and if that's the reason for a difference in opinion, then the president is going to have to do a great job of educating and communicating what it is he knows that would shape the public's mood and perception on a particular issue.

Gives you a good sense of how the Presidency could be ran. Also check out the following regarding differences of opinion in an administration:

SPRENGELMEYER: If you were president today... I'm going to have the power of the hypothetical and declare you president today...

ROMNEY: You know I won't respond to hypotheticals, but that one I might respond to.

SPRENGELMEYER: So, Mr. President, how is your Iraq policy, immediately, going to look any different than President Bush's current, today, Iraq policy?

ROMNEY: Well, as you know, my policy would have looked very different over the last three to four years following the collapse of Saddam Hussein. Today, the troop surge policy is in my opinion the best course we have available to us. And I can't predict exactly how that's going to develop. I do not believe it's a certainty that it'll be successful. I am encouraged by the report that we saw from Brookings over the weekend -- a nonpartisan group that weighed in and said that their perception was that the surge is working. I certainly hope that's the case. But I can tell you that I
will make decisions based on thorough analysis of data. Not just opinion but cold, hard facts, and based upon the input of people who disagree with me. I like debate and disagreement. I want to have people who have very different views sit at the table...

SPRENGELMEYER: Is that a problem in the current administration?

ROMNEY: ...promote their positions with the benefit of data and use those views and that data to make decisions. I'm not inside the current administration, so I can't make an assessment of how decisions are made, but in my own life I have been one who has benefited from what Doris Kearns Goodwin has called the 'team of rivals.' I like having people of differing viewpoints. I love having debate. I remember early on in this administration, there were stories about how certain members of the administration disagreed. And there was a great deal of surprise and dismay that there was disagreement. I love disagreement. If I'm president there will be many stories about people in my administration disagreeing with each other, because I hope they do. I need disagreement to make good decisions.

"If I'm president, there will be many stories about people in my administration disagreeing with each other, because I hope they do. I need disagreements to make good decisions."

There are a few things out there today:

First, countdown to the Ames Straw Poll: 8 days

Second, Michael Gerson has an op-ed in the Washington Post today discussing whether Romney should make a Kennedy-like speech. His conclusion:

Romney, however, should not make Kennedy's mistake and assert that all religious beliefs are unrelated to politics. What Mormonism shares with other religious traditions is a strong commitment to the value and dignity of human beings, ncluding the unborn, the disabled and the poor. This conviction is unavoidably political, because it leads men and women to act in the cause of justice, not in order to impose their religion, but to protect the weak.

I tend to agree with Gerson. I wrote back in March over at Law Students for Romney:

I believe, however, that Romney is better off not making a speech about the role of religion in his candidacy. While Wilson makes the point that religion is central to character and should therefore be explored, I think that character is inferred from the way that a candidate speaks and acts. The religious principles that underlie that behavior and speech are less important than the result. By injecting religion into character, Romney runs the significant risk of having the LDS standards of behavior (as much as I believe in them) become more important than Romney’s actual behavior. No, I think that emphasizing the commonalities that Romney has with people of other faiths is the right direction. It gives voters the more palatable choice of accepting Romney alone without having to swallow the entire LDS Church as a whole. I think that making a Kennedy-like speech forces voters to make a much bigger leap than Romney alone presents.

Third, there was some debate over at the Corner about Romney’s comments about Hezbollah’s tactics in gaining political legitimacy. Lisa Schiffren had this to say:

So it is really horrifying to think that a man of Mr. Romney's intelligence would make the a serious diplomatic mistake of citing a radical terrorist group as a model for U.S. policy. This is where being a techno-guy, without any real foreign policy experience, (or ear) begins to matter.

KJL posted the Romney campaign’s response. Then Andrew Stuttaford gave this rebuttal to Schiffren:

Lisa, Romney was not (of course) praising or in any way endorsing Hamas or Hezbollah. All he was saying is that, judging by their experience, the provision of some form of social services is not a bad way to win support. He's right (of course it's not a particularly novel insight: I believe there's something called the Peace Corps that was founded on pretty much the same idea), and it's an encouraging sign that he is taking a serious look at what has worked politically in a region where US policy has not, recently, been marked by a great deal of success. There's such a thing as learning from the enemy (in fact it's a hallmark of many successful counter-insurgencies). Romney has just given a sign that he is smart enough to do that. Good for him.

UPDATE: Schiffren's mea culpa:

Thanks to the Romney campaign for their quick response to my earlier post — and to Andrew for explaining it for those who didn’t read the whole Romney response. I am relieved to learn that the Governor did not misspeak. I am afraid that I responded too quickly to an email forwarded by a usually reliable source on Middle-East and GOP matters.

Indeed, now having read the original speech I can only say that the partisan news organization which distorted it did so with total abandon. If you follow the link below, the entire Romney speech is available. It's a good speech on a number of subjects, well worth reading.

Fourth, there will be a televised debate on Sunday on ABC.

Fifth, Brownback and Huckabee are having a little exchange over religion. After Jason’s nice summation of the Brownback campaign, it’s nice to know that others are seeing the same. Huckabee’s campaign manager Chip Saltsman said the following:

It’s time for Sam Brownback to stop whining and start showing some of the Christian character he seems to always find lacking in others.

I thought it was pretty amusing that this Ron Paul supporter thinks you should lie in order to take advantage of Mitt's offer to bus you to the straw poll. Think its a joke? Okay, why the 888 number then?

***This is Not an Official Romney Campaign Site- For Those Who Can't Tell*****

If I was to sum up who I think is the candidate who really has the worse chance for winning, I would say Brownback. If you were to ask me who is running the dirtiest campaign, again my answer would be Brownback. If you were to ask me a month ago who has worse chance of winning the '08 nomination, I would have said McCain. If you were to also ask me who at the time was running the dirtiest campaign, again the answer would be McCain. It's no small coincidence.

Brownback has a serious problems. The least of which is the guy having no credentials beyond his pro-life work and his ongoing work with poor countries. Both very laudable, yet neither presidential worthy on their own. I think we all know the need for executive, intellectual, and diplomatic skills. His most serious problems is the ongoing systemic problem in his campaign of attacking all the other Republican candidates, really it's unmatched in 2008.

I call it systemic, because frankly, that's what it is. It ranges from top to bottom. From the Big Cheese himself down to his summer staffers in Iowa.

For instance:

Brownback actually had the piece of mind to call Romney a liar in a press release where he himself was shading the facts (dare I say lie!?!).

I covered Brownback's manipulative bombs in this post.

Brownback has decided to make a weekly press release attacking Mitt Romney. Of course it shades the truth and takes things out of context in nearly every instance.

Brownback staffers have deliberatly attacked Romney's Religion.

Sam has taken to attacking other candidates family members. Brownback has now stooped to the level of attacking Ann Romney. While not only a gracious and inspiring women, but an amazing person of great integrity (and not the candidate)

Sam has now started attacking Tancredo (Twice so far)

Mention Romney to any Brownback staffer/volunteer/supporter and watch the animosity come to the surface- I guarantee you.

Now lets get to the quote that really matters:

Sam Brownback campaign manager Rob Wasinger: "We are looking forward to running a strong issue-based, positive campaign." (The Associated Press, April 2, 2007)

Now Sam. I am not your mommy (or your Daddy- more correctly), but do you think this how honest people deal with each other? Claim to run a positive campaign and instead spend your time executing the modern day political equivalent of Russian "Slash and Burn" warfare?

C'mon Sam, for the sake of your party and the sake of your integrity...Clean Up Your Act!!

Barack Obama had some comments today to share about nuclear weapons that everyone in this country should be concerned about. I give you the whole article:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday he would not use nuclear weapons in any circumstance. "I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance," Obama said, with a pause, "involving civilians." Then he quickly added, "Let me scratch that. There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table."

The Illinois senator warned Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf earlier this week that he would use U.S. military force in Pakistan even without Musharraf's permission if necessary to root out terrorists. However, when asked by The Associated Press after a breakfast with constituents whether there was any circumstance where he would be prepared or willing to use nuclear weapons to defeat terrorism and al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, Obama replied "There's been no discussion of using nuclear weapons and that's not a hypothetical that I'm going to discuss."

When asked whether his answer also applied to the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons, he said it did. Pakistan has nuclear weapons and is politically unstable, raising concerns that the current military leadership could be replaced by religious fanatics who would be less cautious in using the weapons. Obama, in a major foreign policy speech Wednesday, warned that terrorists in the mountains of Pakistan are planning another attack on the United States, after already killing 3,000 Americans in their 2001 attacks. "It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005." he said. "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf will not act, we will."

Obama may have just shown his true colors. Which, frankly, I am not too surprised about. What concerns me is that he said it. Whether or not you intend to use nuclear weapons or not is really beside the point. The issue is perception. We need our enemies to think that in an appropriate circumstance, we would use any force available to us. Why?

Well, the questioner was getting close to this possibility. What happens if when Obama invades Pakistan to go after Al Qaeda, as he has suggested, the government falls under the outcry of the country's population and nuclear weapons fall into the hands of someone worse than President Musharraf? Wouldn't it be nice for whoever was controllig those missiles to be absolutely convinced that if they dared launch one, they would be obliterated from the map?

Now, I must confess a bit of skepticism about deterrence and concepts of mutual assured destruction working effectively against whoever would take control in a chaotic takeover in that country. It may work against the Soviets, but it is less clear when you are dealing with an unstable country. Nevertheless, they have the nukes. They aren't giving them up and hoping to stem the tide of proliferation isn't going to help this situation. As a result, we need to make sure everyone understands that our full arsenal is at our disposal if needed.

I have written previously about how Romney clearly understands the value of a flexible deterrent. He will work on the problem from all angles and leave open his options so that he has the big stick if we really need it. Consider this exchange between him and Hugh Hewitt some time back:

HH: "Now Governor Romney, China's been pretty helpful with North Korea. They've done some good things. But with Iran, they have not been helpful at all, and now Iran announced yesterday 3,000 more centrifuges towards uranium enrichment. They're on a path towards nukes. And the question I hope gets asked of every presidential candidate is if George Bush comes before the people of the United States in the next two years and says absent military action, Iran is going to go critical and acquire nukes, and therefore, I'm going to take that action. If he made that statement, would you support him in that, Governor Romney?"

MR: "Well, you know, the challenge with threatening a military strike is that that becomes a headline in and of itself. I think America has to maintain the option of military action, any time its interests are threatened. And certainly, having a nuclear weapon in Iran would threaten not only our interests, but the interests of our friends, and would threaten the entire world. It's a setting which would justify military action. The only time one could ever consider such an action is if every other reasonable option had been exercised to keep from having to use that option, and we're a long way from there at this point. You point out, one of the key ways of influencing and putting pressure Iran, and that is through China. China really is the
key, both to the nuclear armament of North Korea, as well as to Iran. They're a huge trading partner with both. And China, of course, wants the oil very badly to keep their economy going, and therefore, they don't want to iritate the Iranians. But we're going to have to build our own type of pressure, to make sure that we get from them the kind of support that we need from someone who we want to become more of a friend in the world, and that is by them putting in place very tough restrictions, and
supporting our tough acts against the Iranians, our sanctions against the Iranians, as they develop nuclear weaponry."

After listening to Obama for the past week, I am not sure if he is going to be able to control the military bureaucracy. He is hawkish on going after Al Qaeda, but then slips up on nukes? Compared to Romney's cool headedness and problem solving mentality, I know who I want as Comander-in-Chief.

Related: Make sure you check out the reaction from Pakistan over Obama's threat to launch unauthorized attacks in their country. Hillary Clinton is also piling on.

Response: For those of you who might say Obama corrected himself after he, misspoke, imagine a grand theft auto suspect being interviewed by the police. "Did you know the car was stolen?" Response, "Yeah, I knew. Wait not this car. Scratch that. No one has ever mentioned the car being stolen, that subject is off the table."

Romney on the Subject: Gives Obama the benefit of the doubt.

Is growing...or maybe not.

n recent weeks, Rudy's camp has been sending out frequent releases touting their growing Iowa organization.

Or so it seemed.

Many of the endorsements have already been rolled out. I first noticed the trend in writing up their "Southeast Iowa Leadership Team" last week.

But the pattern became especially egregious today in a release titled "Giuliani Campaign Unveils Central Iowa Leadership."

“Rudy’s organization throughout the state continues to grow with experienced veterans of Iowa politics,” crowed Paul Pate, Rudy's Iowa chair, in the release.

And that's true.

Technically.

Of the 19 names on the list of central Iowa backers, all but one had already been released back on June 11th when the campaign unveiled their statewide "Iowa Leadership Team." And Giuliani's camp didn't every try to mask their recycling. All the names announced in June have the same title in the release today -- regional chair, county chair or county co-chair. They're simply breaking down old endorsements into regional subsets.

Asked about the rehash, Giuliani spokeswoman Maria Comella demurred. "We’re going to take every opportunity to highlight the mayor’s increasing momentum in the state," she said. They include previous endorsers when rolling out new names in other states, too, she pointed out.

This is funny. I love the spokeswomen line "We’re going to take every opportunity to highlight the mayor’s increasing momentum in the state." Here is the problem, using the word "increasing" means it's currently growing. But using endorsements from the past means those are past increases. Maybe Team Giuliani is not too knowledgeable about the use of past and present tenses?

It's kind of like when people see me and they say I look skinnier. Only I haven't lost any weight. I think it's just because they remember me being fatter than I actually am. I think Team Giuliani is hoping they get that kind of "lucky" break.