Who's the Loser?

The LA Times doesn't like Ron Paul. In this blog post they claim he 'lost again' last night in New Hampshire. Fact is he virtually tied with Giuliani.

How come they didn't post Giuliani loses again? His is after all the campaign that claimed to be inevitable, he claimed to be a contender. Ron Paul never did. And last night that one percent difference between his fifth place and Giuliani's fourth was a mere 2223 votes.Giuliani spent millions on ads in New Hampshire compared to Paul.

Rudolph’s camp knew he couldn’t win, so they used the effective strategy of downplaying his loss by claiming that the candidate didn’t make any real effort in New Hampshire. The media, however, today exposed some interesting facts about Guiliani’s efforts in New Hampshire. Guiliani not only made more campaign appearances in New Hampshire than any other candidate but he spent more money in the state than all over candidates except for Mitt Romney. That Ron Paul virtually tied Guiliani is an incredible political feat and the Paulites of New Hampshire should be wildly applauded. Had it not been for Paul activists, the candidate would have finished around Hunter’s 1%.

And Paul beat Giuliani in Iowa. And Paul has delegates while Giuliani has none.

Mr. McCain received 37% of the vote, in comparison to 32% for Mr. Romney. Mr. Huckabee garnered 11%, and Mr. Giuliani beat Ron Paul by one percentage point, 9% to 8%. Senator Thompson captured just 1% of the vote.

		Romney	73,806	32%	4
		Huckabee	26,035	11%	1
		Giuliani	20,054	9%	0
		Paul	17,831	8%	0
		Thompson	2,808	1%	0
		Hunter	1,195	0%	0

Republicans »

Jan 8 Del

Del*

Romney

24

4

Huckabee

18

1

McCain

10

7

Thompson

6

0

Paul

2

0

Hunter

1

0

Giuliani

0

0

*Pledged delegates to date. Republican Scorecard lists all Republican delegates, including unpledged RNC members.

And Paul beat the last best conservative hope the media has been pushing; Fred Thompson. Whom he also beat in Iowa. And he is tied with Thompson in SC where Fred promises to make his final stand; ala the Alamo.

This is probably the real reason the liberal LA Times is pissed off about 'loser' Ron Paul, he is still in the race and they will have to continue writing about him.

Ron Paul: N.H. no reason to let up

January 8, 2008

CONCORD, N.H.—His didn't upstage the Republican frontrunners in New Hampshire, but Ron Paul said Tuesday he will continue on, raising issues that have riled many other Republicans and raising record amounts of cash on the Internet.

"There's really no reason for us to be letting up. It's really only the beginning," the Texas congressman told a raucous crowd of campaign workers and supports in Concord.

Paul, an outspoken critic of the Iraq war, was on track for fifth place with about 8 percent of the vote. He had hoped to better his 10 percent showing in the Iowa caucuses last week.

The libertarian-leaning doctor who says the Republican Party has lost its way said his campaign will gain strength as more voters hear his message of individual liberty and a strict interpretation of the Constitution.

"There is no doubt in my mind that we're on the right track. We're moving," Paul said.

He credited much of his support to young people, and an intense Internet campaign that saw him raise record amounts on the Web in the last three months.

Just like the right wing bloggers are gleefully cheering his loss in New Hampshire. They too suffer from Paulitis. But he just isn't going away or giving up, and good for him because unlike Kucinich this gadfly is getting press and will get more. He is far from irrelevant. Ron Paul is good for shaking up the conservative and Republican establishment in America and pissing off liberals who can't figure out his popularity.

These same folks also don't get Huckabee and his success either. They dismiss the populist as simply a born again phenomena, missing his appeal to the blue collar Republican base.

Working class America with all its peccadillo's and quirks is voting for change, both in the Republican and Democratic party's. And not just a change of leaders but a sea change in the politics of the two ruling party's of the ruling classes.


SEE

New Hampshire Polling Puts Paul Fourth

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Winds of Change

The Iowa Caucuses last night showed that the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign will break the mold of establishment politics. It is after all the fortieth anniversary of the winds of change that blew the establishment apart in 1968. And this Presidential campaign has all the makings of the grass roots rebellion that saw demonstrators take to the streets and activists support Bobby Kennedy in a Power to the People campaign.

Barack Obama has the Kennedy charisma and has captured the new Power to the People campaign. This showed in Iowa, with a massive increase in registered Democratic voters and their showing up at the caucuses, many for the first time. The Democratic Establishment is shaken to its core, for they back Hillary and she came in third. Even her feminist base could not be counted on, for the vast majority of those new voters were older women who supported Obama.

John Edwards whom I predicted would take Iowa, came in second, far ahead of Clinton. His populist message of bashing Wall Street, corporations and the party establishment echoed grass roots sentiments not only in the Democratic Party but in the Republican grass roots. That is why Huckabee won so overwhelmingly. Which I did predict several months ago.

Huckabee gives Kudlow and Co. on CNBC heartburn, they decry his anti-Wall Street message, ironically so does the Conservative establishment Rush Limbaugh was on Fox denouncing Huckabee, as did members of the Christian Coalition leadership. The reason is they are out of touch with their base. The days of the Moral Majority are gone, the vocal power brokers are either discredited like Ralph Reed who was caught up in scandal, or dead like Moral Majority boss Jerry Falwell.

What both Edwards and Huckabee appeal too is blue collar America, main-street. What the establishment appeals to is Wall Street. Sure the investors and bankers and movers and shakers in the marketplace are making money, but to the average American they are facing rising inflation, loss of their homes, increasing debt, lost jobs, frozen wages, lack of medicare, Huckabee and Edwards appealed to these real issues.

Obama does to, in a very personal way, and his message last night was a variation on the old Rastafarian slogan One Love, his statement was about running to unify One People, One America, this goes beyond the two America's Edwards denounces, in providing a more hopeful message. And Huckabee also uses that same language, talking about an inclusive Presidency, one that will not be bi-partisan perse, but anti-partisan. His is a message of hope as well.

The pundits and hacks are scratching their heads this morning, and the powers that be are cringing in their corners wondering how they can rally support behind the establishment candidates; Clinton and Romney. They are out of touch with their base. They are aloof from blue collar/white collar workers in America. This is a working class revolt in both parties.

Sure Republicans are concerned about abortion and gay marriage, but they are also concerned, as Huckabee tells the party bosses, loss of jobs due to globalization, rising interest rates, lack of health care, eduction. Just like their Democratic counterparts do. One listens to Johnny Cash the other listens to Steve Earle, what happened in Ohio last election, where the working class vote, the union vote was mobilized around values issues, abortion and gay marriage, has given way to mobilization around economic bread and butter issues. Fair Trade instead of Free Trade. This is what scares the bejesuzz out of the establishment. It is Pat Buchanan's message eight years later, but delivered by both Democrat and Republican contenders without the jingoistic nativism and isolationist rhetoric.

The pundits were claiming last night that McCain would rise from the dead but in Iowa he ended up tied with a movie star for third place. Sure McCain is a challenger in New Hampshire, but in this he is the establishments fall back candidate. By far the real challenger is Ron Paul. Yes Ron Paul.

His is the under reported story from last night. Until the caucuses his campaign appeared to be internet driven. For instance in a Myspace poll he won overwhelmingly. His messaging and fund raising has all be done on the net. And he showed, as Howard Dean did last round, that the internet is an authentic alternative to corporate fund raising. Paul did what no other Presidential candidate ever did, raise record funds off the internet in one day. Not just once but three times. This is not a mere footnote folks, this is an authentic challenge to the traditional fund raising that has relied on lobbyists and tit for tat promises that Edwards has complained about and McCain tried to change through legislation.

Ron Paul has not been given the credit he is due by the pundit and media establishment. But by coming in fourth with 10% in Iowa he has translated his internet base to a real political force. Now watch him gain even more support as a viable alternative in New Hampshire. Paul appeals directly to the libertarian base that is the New Hampshire voter. Despite the state going Democrat, there is a strong independent base that Paul can and will appeal to. Expect him to come in third there. His libertarian message is appealing to the left and the right, just as a New Left Alliance arose between anarchists of the left and Republican libertarians forty years ago

Winds of change. Expect the unexpected. And look forward to an amazing set of Presidential conventions where the grass-roots will be out in force as delegates, and they will be challenging the party establishments. Democracy never had it so good in the good old U.S.A.

This is after all the Year of the Rat.


SEE:

Huckabee: Paul is Dead.

Lieberman Endorses McCain

Huckabee A Red Tory

Republican Presidential Paul-itics

Gravel and Paul on PBS

Republican Presidential Paul-itics

Ron Paul

Ron Paul and Barry Goldwater

Liberal Republicans

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Huckabee Scabs

Some pundits compare Republican Presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee with Democrat Presidential wannabe John Edwards, claiming they both are pandering to blue collar populism. Well no matter what else you say of him Huckabee is definitely a Republican.

Huckabee Will Cross Picket Line
to Appear on Leno

His blue collar populism does not extend to unionized workers just their unborn children.


SEE:

Huckabee: Paul is Dead.

Lieberman Endorses McCain

Huckabee A Red Tory

Republican Presidential Paul-itics

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Huckabee: Paul is Dead.

Republican candidate Mike Huckabee seems to have slammed Ron Paul yesterday when he defended his Christian Christmas TV Ad.

"I will confess this: If you play the spot backwards it says, 'Paul is dead. Paul is dead,'"

Was that a subliminal smear against Ron Paul? Since the National Journal Poll found Ron Paul was dead last in national polling for Republican candidates.

"Merry Christmas," Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said simply Tuesday in Houston in response to criticism that his latest campaign commercial mixes too much religion with politics.

Huckabee, here to raise campaign money, said the nation is in serious trouble if it is politically incorrect for him to use his TV spot to remind voters about the religious meaning of this holiday season.

Departing from the standard pitches for the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary two weeks from now, the former Arkansas governor and Southern Baptist minister appears on television screens in some states with the shape of a cross behind him and Silent Night playing in the background.

"Are you about worn out by all the television commercials you've been seeing, mostly about politics? Well, I don't blame you," he says in the commercial. "At this time of year, sometimes it's nice to pull aside from all of that and just remember that what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family and friends."

Subliminal message?

Some political observers see the ad as appealing directly to evangelical voters and tapping into the religious differences between Huckabee and one of his chief rivals for the GOP presidential nomination, Mitt Romney, a Mormon. Others such as candidate Ron Paul, the Republican congressman from Lake Jackson, said the ad goes overboard.

"It reminds me of what Sinclair Lewis once said. He says, 'when fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross,' " Paul, a Protestant, told Fox News. "Now I don't know whether that's a fair assessment or not, but you wonder about using a cross, like he is the only Christian or implying that subtly. So, I don't think I would ever use anything like that."

Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights President Bill Donohue said images of a cross in the commercial are an attempt to send a subliminal message.

"What he's trying to say to the evangelicals in western Iowa (is): 'I'm the real thing,' " Donohue said on the same news network. "You know what? Sell yourself on your issues, not on what your religion is."

Play it backward

Huckabee said Tuesday that he mentioned Jesus Christ in his unscripted commercial because, considering the meaning of the holiday, "I don't know what else to say about Christmas."

Some people are drawing such wild inferences from the commercial, Huckabee joked, that they might believe the ad says "Paul is dead" when played backward. It was a reference to the myth that the hidden news of Beatle Paul McCartney's "death" was revealed in the backward playing of one of the band's songs.

Really I heard Huckabee's quote and he said Paul is Dead, three times with no reference to McCartney. Now he is claiming he was referring to Paul McCartney but was he really?

After all Huckabee has no money and Ron Paul again broke a record for one day fund raising this week; when he raised over $6 million on internet donations. The previous record had been $4 million, raised by Paul a couple of months ago. And Paul was the first Republican candidate to criticize Huckabee's ad. And both are contenders in New Hampshire as I have pointed out.

Both these guys were once the so called second tier candidates in the Republican race. Huckabee now has the support of the evangelical conservative base in the party and Paul has become the most successful fund raiser, beating out all the front runners.

Huckabee is hated by the Republican establishment, who have abandoned their Moral Majority evangelical base that is the Reagan Republicans that Huckabee is shamelessly appealing to. He has little money or organizational staff with which to beat his opponents so he is doing the next best thing, talking to the folks, the base of the party who are alienated by the the current crop of 'liberals' running as Republicans; in this case the two front runners Mitt and Rudy.

This ad will come back to haunt him of course because he forgot that Hanukkah is also being celebrated this time of the year, and that Jesus was a Jew not a Republican.

In both races, Democrats and Republicans, this is not politics as usual, it is about the politics of change. Making this one of the most interesting U.S. Presidential elections in decades.




SEE:

Lieberman Endorses McCain

Huckabee A Red Tory

Republican Presidential Paul-itics

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The Week That Was

I took some time off this week. I could say I was being productive, well sort of. I read, I shopped for Xmas. and I got caught up in playing an online multiplayer role playing game; Fallen Sword.

In other words besides being busy at work I goofed off instead of blogging. Mind you that does not mean I did not pay attention to the wonderful world of politics this week. And so I will do a little update here of the week that was. Or at least my interpretation of it.

LIARS CLUB

Well after hearing Karlheinz Schrieber tell his side of the cash for Thiesen weapons systems story, apparently paying off Brian Mulroney after he left office but making the deal while he was in office. It got all very complicated. Before the Star Chamber of the Ethics Committee of Parliament Schrieber insisted that the Liberals had been wrong all along. As had Stevie Cameron. It had nothing to do with Air Bus. Nope it was all about Thiesen and their Light Armoured Vehicles that they wanted to manufacture in the Maritimes. It was about weapons. And Mulroney took cold hard cash to promote weapons. A weapons system that he himself kaboshed when it turned out that it would cost taxpayers a 100 million dollars.

So this week BM showed up before the Star Chamber and contradicted Schrieber. He didn't get $300,000 in thousand dollar bills, he got $225,000. And he kept $75,000, the initial retainer, in a safety deposit box. But he did eventually declare and pay taxes on $300,000. He did meet Schrieber twice while in office, once for coffee at 24 Sussex Drive and once at his PM get away cabin. But shucks that was just a social call, anyone of us could have visited him.

The whole thing showed that both these characters are liars and scoundrels. It just so happens that one of them was once the PM. The other a gun runner.

Now anywhere else in the world a gun runner putting a PM of a country on a retainer to sell weapons would raise an eyebrow or two.

But not in Canada. And it wasn't about Airbus. At least they both agreed on that. Nope it was about Theisen and promoting LAV's. And the deal was cooked up while Mulroney was still in office but concluded once he left. And with cold hard cash there is no paper trail.

Now lets not forget that this was the same Brian Mulroney who got appointed a director of Archer Daniel Midlands, and that company was plagued with a price fixing scandal at the time. And low and behold if ADM didn't buy out Robin Hood Mills of Canada, thanks to Mulroney's FTA with Reagan.

Thats the kind of guy Mulroney is and was. So we should be shocked that he would be a gunzel for a gunrunner?

CTV YOUR BIAS IS SHOWING

For weeks prior to and finally the week of the Star Chamber revelations of Karl and Brian, Craig Oliver of CTV Question Period and Mike Duffy sounded like Conservative hacks. First they complained this was all old news. Then as revelations were made by Karl, Mike dismissed them. Both of them characterized the hearings as a clown show. In fact they insisted, despite facts proving it was anything but, on reporting it as such. Now what got their knickers in a twist?

Surprising and shocking revelations that came from Karl as reported on all the other channels became irrelevant ramblings according Mike. He spent more time dismissing Karl than the Conservatives did.

SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Wednesday the Taser report on the RCMP was released but it was lost in all the news coverage of the 'Waiting For Brian' Story. On Thursday as the Mulroney Royal Entourage came before the Star Chamber, the Conservatives finally released their Pavier Report on Polling.

Remember that. Well this could be why they delayed the report and then released it on the day Brian was testifying. Tories spend more on polling now than Liberals did
Meanwhile Stockwell Day was nowhere to be found on Parliament Hill. Neither Wednesday when the damning Taser Report came out, calling it a lethal weapon.

RCMP watchdog demands tougher rules on Tasers
Canadians 10 times more likely to be Tasered to Death by Police then Americans

Nor was he around on Friday when the RCMP Investigation Report came out.

Task force says RCMP should be 'separate entity'


RCMP JUST ANOTHER PUBLIC SERVICE

The Task Force revealed that the RCMP is just another group of public sector workers. Yes there was the usual media and pundit comments about the iconic nature of the RCMP, blah, blah. But when you look closely at the report you see that the RCMP is no different than any other public sector workers. They are over worked, putting in unpaid overtime. The force has allocated for increased staffing but never hired personnel. RCMP officers are doing data entry that should have been done by data entry clerks, but of curse those positions were never filled. Working Alone is dangerous for most workers, and many provinces have Working Alone legislation. Of course the RCMP deaths recently in the North shows that these workers share something in common with their civilian counterparts. Due to cost savings, the bottom line, they are put in the way of danger that has ended up with fatalities. Cost cutting, cutbacks, unfilled positions are all the legacy of the neo-con attack on the public sector in the nineties. And the RCMP are public sector workers just like their civilian counterparts. The report talks about the need for civilian oversight, for making the RCMP autonomous and giving them access to the the oversight commission for complaints. What it failed to recommend was a real grievance procedure and an authentic new form of staff relations, that is they failed to recommend unionization of the RCMP.

CSIS BEAT THEM TO IT

The revelation that the CIA destroyed waterboarding torture tapes reminded me that CSIS did the same thing with its wire tapping of the Air India conspirators twenty years ago. Nice to know Canada leads the way. Of course the CIA says it did it to protect the identities of its agents. Did CSIS do it for the same reason?

HYUK, HYUK, IT'S HUCKABEE

As your faithful wag predicted here Huckabee has come from the second tier to be a real threat to the leading Republican Presidential Candidates. That's because they believed their own press. While Huckabee appeals directly to the base of the party. He is one of them. And while he is he is also a Red Tory. A socially liberal politician in right wing garb. The Republican establishment hates him and have begun attacking him, as have media pundits like MSNBC Chris Matthews, that reminds us Huckabee endorses the Second Amendment because folks need guns to protect themselves from the Government. Watch for more smears as Huckabee support rallies in Iowa.

On the Sunday Talk Shows south of the Border the has been McCain who polls below Paul sometimes and is neck and neck with Thompson for falling out of the top tier, is being lauded as the guy who will win New Hampshire. Don't count on it. I predict given New Hampshire's libertarian bent that Paul will surprise folks more than any McCain comeback. After all he raised $3 million dollars online, in one day. A record for any politician. And that money makes him richer than McCain. As for Thompson, glad he didn't give up his acting career.

As for Democrats, Iowa will go to the guy who looks like JFK and talks like RFK. No not Obama, John Edwards. He has the machine in the state, and is everyone's number two choice. In Iowa being number two makes you number one in the caucus's and he has the organization to pull it off. Look for an upset.

PATRIARCHY KILLS

The death of teenage girl in Toronto made headlines. Her father allegedly killed her for being, well a Canadian teenager. You see she rejected her 'religious' faith. Or at least the symbol of womens oppression in that faith.The headscarf. No she wasn't Amish. She was a Muslim. Heck she could have been Christian or Jewish, or a Hindu. It matters not. These are all patriarchal religions who believe in the Father God, and God is the Father. Hence women and children and animals remain chattel to the husband. Secular, pluralist society is being besieged by the identity politics of the oppressors. Thousands of years of religious oppression led to the enlightenment and the revolutionary modernism. Today the forces of humanism face a determined opposition from those who would proclaim their backwards anti-human morality as justified in the name of cultural understanding and inclusiveness. Religion is Political, and always has been, and the battle for freedom is about freedom from religion, not just freedom for religion. Those who would claim that it is only Islam that is intolerant should look to their own holy books, to the divisions between men and women in their synagogues, temples, and churches that exist today. This could have happened to any teenage girl in Canada whose parents are religious zealots. In fact it is the reason we also have young girls and women having babies while denying they are pregnant, which has often ended in tragedy.


There we go a week of rants in one day.




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