Happy Hour Roundup
• Rudy Giuliani faced up to his social liberalism today, telling the conservative crowd at Houston Baptist University that he is pro-choice, pro-gay rights, and pro-gun control: "I should honestly tell you the things that I can evolve on and the things that I can’t and then you should decide."
• Barack Obama spoke to the Federation of State and Provincial Firefighters Association convention in New Hampshire — but by phone, from Iowa. In fact, he even said that he chewed out his staff for the scheduling conflict that put him in this position.
• Obama also reiterated his call in Iowa for Americans to call their Congressmen and Senators and urge them to vote against Bush Administration policies on Iraq — after the state's Republican Senator, Chuck Grassley, directly criticized Obama for it and called him "not Senatorial."
• Mitt Romney is apparently changing his story on whether or not he actively sought a draft deferment during the Vietnam War — he now says he felt a crisis of conscience over the deferment he received in order to go on his Mormon mission work.
• The Associated Press estimates that John Edwards' social program proposals would cost over $125 billion per year.
• One reason that Fred Thompson is not in a rush to declare a candidacy: He thinks modern campaigns are too long and expensive.
• The New Jersey Republican Party is on the verge of enacting a rule change so that their February 5 primary will be winner-take-all — a move that is viewed as being meant to help Rudy Giuliani amass all 52 delegates from the state.
• According to a poll taken in March, only 25% of American Latinos knew that Bill Richardson is a Latino running for President.
• At the firefighters' convention in New Hampshire, Joe Biden expressed his gratitude for the firemen who saved his sons from dying in the 1972 car accident that killed his first wife and daughter: "I wouldn't be a United States senator were it not for the Delaware firefighters. That's no malarkey, that's flat-out no malarkey."
• John McCain will go to the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600 race in North Carolina on May 27, where he will be the race's honorary starter.
• Congressman Scott Garrett (R-NJ) will co-chair the exploratory committee of conservative Assemblyman Michael Doherty, a potential opponent of Dem Senator Frank Lautenberg in 2008.
• Al Sharpton is taking a beating from Mormons, who are outraged at his comments about Mitt Romney. Now even Marie Osmond is calling his remarks bigoted.
The stat on Richardson is amazing, but not unexpected. Members of my campus College Dem group wanted to have a forum on how cool it is to have a woman (Clinton) and a minority (Obama) in the race and didn't even realize that Richardson would also make history. This is a group of supposedly well informed Democrats. I was a bit perplexed.
If Wes Clark doesn't jump in the race, I'll volunteer for Richardson so, to me, the media blackout of substantive Richardson coverage is more than a little frustrating. But I guess I'm naive to think that experience matters that much.
May 11, 2007 8:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is pure joy to see an ugly racist like Al Sharpton called out for the bigot he is.
I wonder if any of the mob that attacked Don Imus here for aping the rappers have any twinge of conscience after the festivities? The reverend never will.
Best, Terry
May 11, 2007 8:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
It should be rather obvious to all that the only history-making that would be meaningful would be the election of a Mormon.
It is not obvious to me how you can equate Wes Clark, a liberal, with a winger like Richardson. Does the imaginary racial difference mean that much? If I learn Spanish, can I be trans-racial?
I personally think it would be a fine thing if a person of Native American heritage, which most any "hispanic" can claim, was elected president but I would be only little more inclined to vote for a DLC'er like Richardson than the Mormon, who is even further to the right and particularly dishonest, even for a politician, to boot.
JMO.
Best, Terry
May 11, 2007 9:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I personally think it would be a fine thing if a person of Native American heritage, which most any "hispanic" can claim, was elected president..."
In fact, the country has already had a Native American Vice President, Charles Curtis (R-KS), who was elected on the GOP ticket with Herbert Hoover in 1928.
May 11, 2007 9:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you.
I would guess there were many others, presidents and vice-presidents, that had Native American ancestors.
When I was young, I was jealous that my older half-sisters were part Crow while they were oddly envious my father was Irish. Hell any damn fool can claim to be Irish. :-)
I was making small talk with a Russian immigrant once. He asked where I was from. "New York," I said. "No, no," he said, "all Americans are from someplace else." I was then going to tell him I was actually originally from Oregon but he would never have gotten the joke. I wonder how he would have handled information he was talking to a Crow?
Best, Terry
May 12, 2007 2:43 AM | Reply | Permalink