Born Again: Religion and the Race for the White House

Call them "born again" undecideds: Republicans exploring bids for the presidency in 2012 have ramped up their religious fervor and sharpened answers to questions about faith in an effort to court social conservative voters in key early primary states.

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Source: http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=6297361c8c6fa1729bd49f44c96305b1

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Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

Visual source: Newseum

Haley Barbour edition.

Dan Balz:

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour?s surprise decision on Monday not to run for president set off a scramble inside the Republican Party for pieces of his financial and political network. It also raised questions about the challenges the party may face in trying to unseat President Obama...

Obama, too, is less popular than he was when he was sworn in two years ago. But he comes to the race with the significant advantages of incumbency. As he steams ahead with fundraising and organizing, Republicans are under growing pressure to tamp down concerns about whether they can find a candidate capable of defeating him.

You don't run if you can't win. It's that simple.

Greg Dworkin (that's me):

Haley Barbour, as I and others noted this morning, would have been a candidate who could not have won enough moderates outside the South and might even have lost some tea party conservatives over his establishment ties and lobbyist past. Barbour doesn't need to run. He's had a very good career for himself doing what he's doing.

So, the weak GOP field just got weaker. And if Mitch Daniels declines to run, we'll get the fun of watching Romney and Pawlenty duke it out for "serious candidate" status (Jon Huntsman remains an also-ran) while the "not serious" candidates (Trump, Bachmann) get most of the attention.

Lou Zickar:

Haley Barbour has gone from candidate to kingmaker. Every potential GOP nominee will now be lining up for his endorsement. His name may not be on the ballot in 2012, but his political influence will continue to be felt.

Peter Bergman:
Haley Barbour has taken a bow and gracefully exited the pack of Republican hopefuls, claiming that he has insufficient fire in his belly. Lots of belly, not enough fire.

Haley's no fool. He read the tea party leaves and found no auger of good fortune, even in the dregs, which is where his poll numbers reside. Now, he can go back to what he's really good at -- being the GOP's No. 1 financial flypaper. Roll him out at a Beltway bash, a Hilton Head hideaway or a corporate retreat and Barbour comes back loaded with billionaire bucks and corporate cash, which he dutifully dispenses to his colleagues who have stayed on the stump, taking his vig out in favors down the line.

I suspect that more than one Republican ringleader is not unhappy to see Haley exiting the Big Tent. They must have an inkling of what a haircut the party would take if Barbour made the cut.

Jonathan Capehart:
But as much as I?m happy that Barbour is not running, his departure robs us of what would have been one of the most interesting orations in political history. We all know he has a blind spot the size of the Confederate flag when it comes to race, the civil rights movement and his place during that turbulent time in the South and the United States. So much so that The Post?s Karen Tumulty reported last month that ?Barbour .?.?. is is considering giving a major speech on the subject. The likely venue: a 50th anniversary reunion of the Freedom Riders, set for late May in Jackson.?

No matter what he said, Barbour?s speech would have been fascinating.

Stanley Fish, not about Barbour:
The fact that this realm of the less than fully enfranchised has at times included children, women, blacks, Native Americans, Asians, homosexuals and Jews as well as animals and trees tells us that there is a counter-narrative in which standing has been extended in an ever-more-generous arc. Stone quotes Charles Darwin observing that while man?s sympathies were at an early stage confined to himself and his immediate family, over time ?his sympathies became more tender and widely diffused, extending to men of all races, to the imbecile, maimed and other useless members of society, and finally to the lower animals.? In the same spirit, the philosopher Richard Rorty urges that ?We should stay on the lookout for marginalized people ? people whom we still instinctively think of as ?they? rather than ?us.?? Indeed, we should ?keep trying to expand our sense of ?us? as far as we can.?


Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/6TbzmTD28Ng/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Round-up

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Midday open thread

  • A drumbeat that every elected Democrat should be pounding:
    In a significant escalation of the progressive campaign to make Republicans pay a political price for voting to end Medicare, the progressive advocacy group Americans United for Change will run broadcast TV ads in the districts of Reps. Steve King (R-IA), Sean Duffy (R-WI), Chip Cravaack (R-MN), and Paul Ryan (R-WI).
  • Former Senator Rick Santorum apparently thinks that ending health care reform is worth any cost:
    SANTORUM: [The health care law] is a program that if the president wants to defend, he should stand up and say the 2012 election is about Obamacare. We?ll put this on hold, and make it a referendum on Obamacare.

    WALLACE: Well ok that?s 2012, but you?re saying you?d let the country go into default on this issue.

    SANTORUM: No I think the president would let this country go into default on this issue.

    WALLACE: But you would make that the condition ? you?d make that the price?

    SANTORUM: Absolutely. Absolutely.

  • A very serious candidate:
    Donald Trump says he's considering running in the primary for the Republican presidential nomination, but the real estate mogul didn't vote in primary elections for more than two decades, according to the New York City Board of Elections.

    The possible GOP candidate voted in a primary election in the 1989 New York City mayor's race - when Rudy Giuliani beat businessman Ronald Lauder - then didn't vote in a primary for 21 years, board spokeswoman Valerie Vazquez said Saturday. The report on Trump's voting record initially appeared on TV station NY1 a day earlier.

  • How will Haley Barbour's drawl play in Peoria?
    He is not like them. And the breakfast crowd at Chez Vachon knows it the instant Haley Barbour opens his mouth. It?s not that they haven?t met Southern politicians before. Or that they don?t recognize the oddly shaped pin on his lapel as the state of Mississippi. The people of New Hampshire have been courted by politicians of all shapes and sizes over the years. It?s just that very few of them have encountered an accent quite like this.

    ?I noticed it, absolutely. You notice it,? said Jim Waddell, a state Representative from Hampton. He?s a one-time jogging partner of President Bill Clinton and recently shared breakfast here with Barbour. ?Some people might say, ?Ah, that?s phony, or that?s not real, or that?s hickish, or that?s redneckish.? But I don?t feel that way. ... From my own point of view, I love a Southern accent and I love the way they use a lot of expressions in it. It?s lively.?

    It may be lively, but the question is whether Barbour?s profound drawl will hurt his campaign to win over voters in the nation?s first presidential primary. The consensus on the trail this month was that the Mississippi native could be a hard sell in a Northern city set nearly 1,500 miles -? and a world away, culturally ? from the governor?s mansion in Jackson.

  • Republicans are finding out that slashing education spending is about as popular as ending Medicare:
    Angry residents confronted Republican state Sen. Tom Casperson at a town hall last week over his support for Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder?s (R) proposed budget, which ? like those of many other GOP governors ? would slash funding for education while cutting corporate taxes. Snyder?s budget would cut spending on education by $471 per student and reduce teachers? pay and benefits. Yet while students and teachers are asked to sacrifice, Snyder?s budget would give huge tax breaks to businesses in the form of a flat 6 percent corporate tax rate.

    At Casperson?s town hall in Marquette, Ishpeming school board member Mike Flynn joined numerous other constituents in speaking out against the cuts. Flynn said his district is already struggling to make ends meet, having shut down its middle school, laid off teachers and staff, and privatized its bus and custodial services. Flynn asked those in attendance to stand if the oppose education cuts. ?Nearly everyone in the room jumped to their feet while cheering and clapping,? the Maquette Mining Journal reported.

    Casperson responded that he was trying to minimize the impact on education, but that cuts are necessary. ?What about a higher business tax?? one constituent shouted, met with cries of ?yes!? from other attendees and a chorus of applause.

  • Chuck Norris, trading in on his fading celebrity, has been peddling anti-Muslim talking points that he's plagiarizing from right-wing sources.
  • In case you missed this earlier:
    The Supreme Court has denied Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli?s petition to hear Virginia's lawsuit against the health care overhaul immediately. The order was released Monday without explanation.
  • Things continue to go swimmingly in Afghanistan:
    The Taliban staged an audacious prison break here early Monday, freeing at least 476 political prisoners through a long tunnel, according to the warden, Gen. Ghulam Dastagir Mayar.

    He said that security authorities had discovered in the morning that the prisoners from the political wing of the building were gone, and that the authorities had just found the tunnel. ?We do not know if the tunnel was dug from outside or inside the prison,? he said.

  • Moron:
    Televangelist Franklin Graham suggested he was unsure about whether President Obama was American, saying on ABC?s This Week yesterday that potential presidential candidate Donald Trump ?may be right.? Graham went on to praise Trump and implied that he may end up endorsing the real estate mogul.
  • Class:
    Sheen said that he and his wife were fighting a lot at the time and that he was several hours late to dinner at Mar-a-Lago, a place he said "looks like a cheap set." He said Trump wanted to cheer him up, so he gave him what he thought was a pair of platinum and diamond Harry Winston cuff links valued at more than $100,000.

    Sheen said Trump kept complimenting his Patek Phillipe watch too, but Sheen pointed out he wasn't going to give his watch to a "billionaire," noting, "He could buy the company!"

    Long story short: A few months later, as Sheen and his wife were divorcing and lawyers were divvying up the wealth, they had the gift cuff links appraised. They weren't Harry Winstons, it turns out. They weren't platinum. They weren't gold either. And those diamonds? Cubic zirconium. He said the cuff links appraised for about 60 bucks.

    And they say Sheen is the crazy one?


Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/Y4JH5VLuKh0/-Midday-open-thread

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Right Turn: Mitch Daniels doubles down on social issues 'truce'

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) was recently interviewed by the Hoover Institution's Peter Robinson. The full interview airs Monday, but the released clips are already causing a stir:

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/11/AR2011031104844.html?wprss=rss_politics

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