Good for you Texas

That isn’t a phrase I have used all that often, but last night the Lone Star State made me proud.

I haven’t written about Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, but I often discuss him with friends, I frequently tell the story about meeting him at a 2006 gubernatorial debate in Agawam where an entrance census, census not survey, showed 95% of those in attendance did not know who they would vote for if the election were that night, which is not uncommon, people go to debates to learn about the candidates. Patrick blew the doors of the place. I had goose bumps. He got more standing ovations than his opponents got applause, I would liken it to the Obama buzz, except bigger. The exit census showed 97% would vote for Patrick if the election were that day, census. What does that mean? It means that of the 200 or so people there that night, six or seven people would vote for one of the other candidates, including the two other candidates themselves and their wives. Barring a massive scandal or a lack of personal ambition, I think Deval Patrick will be President someday.

Patrick and Obama have been friends for years, they went to school together, they worked together as community organizers in Chicago, and Gov. Patrick is one of the chief strategists on the Obama campaign. They are also very similar politicians, near identical résumés pre-politics, they speak with sincerity about bridging the blue/red divide and they both have the power to give a speech that’ll knock your socks off. That said it didn’t surprise me to read about the manufactured controversy about them making the same point in a speech (and by the way, if you can forget who said it first, it’s a dynamite speech).
It also didn’t surprise me to get a couple phone calls from Hilary staffers curious for my opinion. I pointed out the close relationship the two have, and also that Patrick had suggested Obama use the allegedly “stolen” lines. They seemed to think it was going to cripple Obama and rejuvenate the Hilary campaign, I said they were crazy, but one staffer who works very closely with Mrs. Clinton said “wait until you hear the line we came up with. She’s going to drop it on him and it’ll be the chant at every McCain rally, it’ll be all over youtube, it’s gonna be the turning point.”
I was skeptical.

The line? “That’s not change you can believe in – it’s change you can Xerox”. The audience booed. Good for you Texas. It was one of the dumbest things her campaign has done, how is she going to condemn him for using lines written by his staffers with a line written by her staffers? I called my friend after the debate to ask that question and to say that “a big part of why you’re losing so monumentally, is because you have a candidate and a campaign staff that can’t seem to tell the difference between brilliant ideas and really stupid political moves, this was dumber than when you dug up his kindergarten papers”.

Her campaign still thinks it’s going to resonate.

Youtube Debate

Seriously, I don’t know how anyone watching the Republican youtube debate could draw the conclusion that the winner was anyone other than Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. He absolutely blew his opponents out of the water. He was so impressive that he has surged ahead in every poll, and most importantly to a lead in the Iowa polls. Barring a massive skeleton discovery or the Ron Paul revolution really coming to fruition he should be able to ride this tidal wave to become the Republican nominee.

It wasn’t just how well he preformed - and he was outstanding - but also how poorly everyone else did. As per usual, Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo had nothing to add but blatant bitter bigotry. John McCain stayed so embarrassingly on script that his responses were often so far off from the questions that he seemed aloof, which is a great way to present yourself to people who already think you’re too old. Ron Paul did well with the questions he was asked, but he didn’t get much time to talk, and the answers his questions required were generally too esoteric to be memorable. That said, the best burn of night came after McCain was explaining how in touch with the active military he is because he had Thanksgiving in Iraq, and that the troops want to stay and fight, to which Paul, the only Republican candidate who has pledged an immediate and complete troop withdrawal, asked the Senator if that were true, why he (Paul) was leading all candidates in donations from active duty military personal.

Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson didn’t bother to open their mouths unless it was to bash each other (Giuliani did sneak in a couple of valid points, but they were lost in the nit picking). Romney actually tried to degrade Giuliani for having served as mayor rather than a higher office, this was such a dumb idea that most people didn’t think it could possibly be what it was, if Romney thinks making this race about experience is a good idea, he has his head unbelievably far up his own ass. Romney is the least politically experienced candidate running in any party. He is a one term governor, and a largely unsuccessful one at that.

The only reason he was able to win that term in the first place is because Democratic opponent Shannon O’Brien was an inept candidate, and the Green party candidate Jill Stein, was so brilliant that she drew a large percentage of the vote, many of whom were siphoned away from the hapless O’Brien. During his term as governor Romney failed to accomplish any of his proposed legislation, reversed himself on a number of positions, cut funding to schools, slashed teacher salaries, oversaw the only state wide population loss in the country, and spent most of his time fighting for constitutionally mandated discrimination. He was so infuriating to the state as a whole that he opted not to seek a second term, as he knew full well that even an idiot like Shannon O’Brien would kick his ass the second time around.

Mitt Romney doesn’t give a damn about anything other than Mitt Romney. He will tell anybody anything to try and cement a foundation, he’ll lie, reverse positions, cheat, throw mud, make stuff up, beg, borrow, steal, whatever it takes. He doesn’t want to be President to change the world, because he thinks he’s right for the job or because he thinks he has good ideas. Instead, he, like Hilary, wants to be President because he thinks it’s a sweet job, because he wants his picture to go up in elementary school classrooms, and because it’s the only thing he can do to be more impressed when he looks in the mirror. He’s a giant tool, an even bigger douche bag and I have no use for people like that. So, Mitt, please, make this a race about experience, keep making racist comments, please continue to become less and less relevant and don’t let the door hit your ass.